The Trouble With Unicorns
by CartsBeforeHorses
Summary: Prince Blueblood leads a revolt to form a unicorns-only kingdom in Canterlot.
1. Celestia's School of Hard Knocks

Chapter One: Celestia's School of Hard Knocks

Celestia's School For Gifted Unicorns, Canterlot, 2013.

The day before Twilight Sparkle's coronation ceremony.

The vast marble-columned edifice of Princess Celestia's School For Gifted Unicorns cast a looming shadow down the mountainside of the perched capital city of Canterlot. From the balcony abutting the rear of the school, students could glimpse a magnificent view of Equestria. The front entrance to the school was guarded by grand brass gates and stone walls. Unicorn guards stood tall outside of the campus, assuring only students and faculty entered.

In the center courtyard of the campus, a grand fountain spewed jets of cool water a dozen feet into the air. Ponies lay in the grass around the fountain studying for exams, eating lunch, and chatting with one another. The lawn was surrounded by the various institutions of the school: from Magic Kindergarten to Magic Middle and High School all the way up to Magical University.

Prince Blueblood sat in his office, busily preparing reports and forms. His feather quill glowed in his magic as he wrote. Paperweights held tall stacks of forms down as a breeze blew lazily through an open window. As the dean of the school, Blueblood had tall piles of work to attend to. If he was lucky, he would actually get to leave work on time today. If not, and if today turned out to be like the other three school days this week, he would have to stay until well after the sun had set.

In eighteen years at this job he had learned much. In fact, he figured he had learned more than the very students he had the job of educating. He had learned that in order to accomplish anything at all, the actions required of him were as numerous as the words needed to write a novel, and they were as tedious as attempting to write said novel while holding a feather pen between one's hooves. He had learned that if he didn't document absolutely everything—every decision, transaction, conversation, and event—somepony would find a way to twist his actions into something not at all resembling his original intentions. But most of all, he had learned that this was certainly not a job he wanted to do for the rest of his life. Or even one he wanted to do for the rest of the year.

The School, though a decent institute of learning which ranked among the top 20 magical schools in Equestria, had suffered from severe problems since he had taken over as dean eighteen years ago.

For one, bullying and mistreatment of students was rampant. He recalled a young student he had years ago named Twilight Sparkle. She had been teased and ridiculed by her classmates in Magic Kindergarten, simply because she had been the most brilliant student in the class. As a magically-gifted stallion himself, Blueblood had felt for Twilight's predicament. It got so bad that Prince Blueblood and Princess Celestia agreed to simply pull Twilight out of traditional classes and have the Princess tutor the unicorn one-on-one.

But did Princess Celestia let Blueblood expel any of the bullies? No, of course not. "Foals will be foals," she had said. Instead, far too many students at this school were mistreated and the rule-breakers allowed impunity so that the torment would continue. Worse than that, Blueblood feared that his reputation was suffering. Ponies might think that he ran a disorderly school!

The second and more severe problem was the course requirements for degrees at this school. Students had to take a minimum of three "friendship courses" to graduate. Blueblood scoffed at what a ridiculous idea that was. None of the other magic schools made students take friendship courses! True, this was the only school at which dangerous spells such as black magic, mind control, time travel, and invisibility (among others) could be legally taught, through scrolls in the Canterlot Archives which only Celestia's graduates could access.

The Princess was worried that if ponies did not have loving hearts, they might abuse these spells: thus the friendship courses. But Blueblood didn't think that friendship could be taught or instilled any more than a teacher could teach somepony how to mourn for a deceased loved one. The friendship courses certainly weren't helping to eliminate bullying, that was for sure. If Blueblood had the power, he'd remove these courses. They were keeping the cost of tuition at Princess Celestia's School much higher than tuition elsewhere, and these requirements were keeping many students from pursuing magical degrees at CSGU when they could get them easier and cheaper elsewhere.

But both of these problems paled in comparison to the third problem: a lack of funding. Prince Blueblood's stomach churned upon the contemplation of his meager and inadequate salary. Though Blueblood was royalty and most of his expenses were paid for by the state, the teachers could not say the same. Unfortunately, Celestia's School couldn't pay competitive salaries, and most of the best professors went to teach elsewhere. For whatever reason that Prince Blueblood could not quite discern, Princess Celestia was unwilling to funnel any significant amount of money into her school.

Thus, the school had had to rely on private donations, which had not been easy to come across. As it just so happened, far too many of the ponies who called Celestia's School their alma mater were not willing to donate money to it. Many of those who ended up successful enough in their lives to have made a decent amount of money resented the bullying and tormenting they had faced from their peers, and needless to say did not want their "fond memories" to be passed on to any further generations of young minds. Blueblood could hardly blame them.

The school had received a nice endowment from the Arthur C. Maloney Foundation in exchange for renaming the library the "Maloney Library." However, renaming a library was something that can only be done once, as the Financial Committee was seemingly _surprised_ to learn when they accepted a similar offer from the Almeda Group several years later and tried to rename it the "Almeda Library." The name stuck for about a week until Arthur Maloney caught word and threatened to sue the school for not following his endowment contract. Blueblood was astounded at the Committee's sheer stupidity. For ponies in academia, they should have known better.

And that's when Blueblood had even had _time_ to solicit donations. Much of his time had been preoccupied. In 2002, a deranged student had walked into a Magic High School classroom and used a fire spell to burn the classroom to the ground. Seven young fillies and colts and two teachers had perished, twenty were severely burnt, and the entire East Wing of the school suffered fire damage. It was a national tragedy which stuck in the public's mind for years. (_Two_ years to be exact, until a stallion with a bolt-action rifle shot a dozen students at a school in Vanhoover in 2004, at which point everypony forgot about the massacre at Celestia's School.)

Not to Blueblood's surprise, the arsonist student had been viciously bullied and wrote a note that he wanted to "get even" with his classmates. But _nooooo_, bullying still wasn't a problem serious enough to warrant expulsion for, apparently! That is, unless physical contact was involved on multiple occasions. By which time, as the massacre demonstrated, it might be too late.

Rather than learn from this tragedy and do the sensible thing, Princess Celestia simply added more friendship classes to the course requirements, even though the arsonist in question had taken two. Prince Blueblood also had to go through the arduous task of rebuilding the destroyed section of the school and hiring new teachers. He surmised that the name of Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns had been somewhat tainted by the incident; new enrollment dropped significantly in the years afterwards. As enrollment dropped so did tuition revenue, which did not help given the fiscal issues.

For these and a host of other reasons, Blueblood was sick and tired of his job after eighteen years of it. He glanced at the grandfather clock on his wall. Only three more hours to go and he could leave.

Suddenly, he heard a knocking at the door. He got up from his desk and went to open it. Before he reached the door, however, he glanced himself in the mirror. Blueblood's mane was clumped and sweaty from working in his hot office, and his suit was disheveled. He suppressed a screech at seeing his own horrid appearance.

_My, I look dreadful! I can't be seen like this!_ he thought.

In apprehension, he floated an ivory comb through his golden mane. _Not quite right, he thought. Perhaps if I style it back…_ After a few seconds of fiddling with his mane he was finally confident in his appearance.

_Now, that settles the hair. Good. But… oh dear, my bowtie_! He magically twiddled the blue bowtie until it was straightened. He would have worn a regular necktie, but he believed the bowtie made him look like a distinguished academic. In reality, it probably just made him look like a dork.

_What about all of this lint!?_ Blueblood's keen eye spotted hundreds of threads of hair, dust, and all manner of particulate matter strewn about his suit. In Blueblood's eyes, the small lint particles might as well have been red wine stains or cigarette burns. He grabbed a lint-roller and went to work.

Though some ponies who knew Blueblood thought he was a narcissist, he hardly believed himself to be self-obsessed. He simply wanted his outward appearance to match the knowledge and competence he knew he had within.

_My, I look dreadful! What if this pony at the door is a donor, or a professor, or a superintendent, or—_

A yellow aura surrounded the doorknob and the door swung open as Princess Celestia walked in.

—_Or just the Princess._ Blueblood set the lint roller back down. Thankfully, his boss and distant royal relative was hardly an appearance or formality-obsessed pony. Blueblood could've probably come to work naked, and she wouldn't have batted an eye.

"What can I do for you, Princess?" Blueblood asked, motioning for her to sit down. The Princess sat down and shifted around in her chair. She glanced around the room furtively, her pupils wide. Blueblood had met with the princess hundreds of times regarding academic matters, but had never seen her display this emotion. Upon contemplation, he was pretty sure that she was nervous.

"Did you receive my letter, Blueblood?" she asked.

Prince Blueblood recalled reading a letter from the Princess earlier that day in which she said that she had urgent personal business to discuss with him. Though the two royal family members were never particularly close, he agreed to talk with her mostly out of curiosity as to what could possibly cause her to reach out to _him_, of all ponies, regarding a personal matter.

"Yes, Princess Celestia, I read it."

"Good, so you know that I have a personal matter to discuss with you."

"Yes."

The Princess paused for a few moments before she continued, "You see… well, there is no easy way to say this."

"No easy way to say what?" Blueblood asked. Now he was REALLY curious.

"Prince Blueblood, over the past several months I have been having health issues. I've been sick more often, and have felt weakened. I've been to several doctors and specialists, and they've determined that I have a degenerative condition. Though which condition, they don't know. But I have to come to terms with it..."

"With what, Celestia?"

She paused a moment, before saying, "I am dying, Prince Blueblood. My doctors estimate that I have three years left at the most."

Blueblood's hair stood on end. Great, now he'd have to comb it back down again.

"You are obviously one of the first ponies that I've told about this, but I will be making it public within about six months." Celestia lowered her head.

"Princess… I… I'm so sorry to hear that." Like almost every other pony alive, he had no memory of a time when Celestia was not raising the sun and ruling on her throne from Canterlot. Though he had his disagreements with the Princess in the past over academic issues, he was still quite shocked and saddened to hear the news that his royal relative was dying.

"That's quite alright, Prince Blueblood. I know that the two of us aren't all that close, but I wanted you to hear it from me personally. But I am content with what I have done with my life. I have ruled and have kept this kingdom safe and prosperous for hundreds of years. I don't think anypony alive could have done a better job. I am quite at peace and ready to pass on."

"What about Princess Luna?" Prince Blueblood asked.

"She will still raise the moon, and I will appoint a royal successor to my throne to raise the sun. In fact, I will be appointing somepony who has walked the halls of this this very school."

"Yes?" Prince Blueblood's heart skipped a beat.

"Someone who is quite magically gifted, and quite smart."

"Yes?" His pupils dilated.

"Someone who has the ability to do lots of paperwork and manage a lot of people, as the position requires."

"Yes?" A single bead of sweat dripped from his forehead and he started to grin.

"Someone who has demonstrated leadership capabilities in times of crisis, times of uncertainty, and even in times of death."

"Yeeeessss?" Blueblood said, leaning over his desk and gazing directly into the Princess's eyes. He was finally going to get out of this dead-end job! He was going to be a KING! He would raise the sun every day! He would—

"I am pleased to tell you that I shall be appointing Twilight Sparkle as my successor."

His heart sank and he fell back into his chair with a thud. "Oh… that's… um, great! Good for her! I'm so pleased to know that a graduate of this school is going to be a princess!" Blueblood said through clenched teeth and a plastic smile.

_Twilight Sparkle!? She isn't even a princess! How can she even take the throne!? How could_—

As if reading his mind, Celestia responded, "I will thus be coronating her as a princess. I have already cast the spell to turn her into an alicorn. She has demonstrated quite a bit of magical prowess and leadership capabilities, so I determined she would be a good candidate for leadership. Though I am saddened at my own imminent passing, I am pleased that such a qualified pony as Twilight will be able to take my place. The Coronation will be this Saturday, if you wanted to come watch."

"Yes, I will have to do that..." Prince Blueblood muttered.

The Princess stood up out of her chair. She said, "Well, anyway, I have to go and lower the sun. Even though I am very weakened, that is still one thing that I can occasionally do without Princess Luna's help. I'll see you at the Coronation event this Saturday. Thanks for being there for me and her, Prince Blueblood."

"Oh yes…" Blueblood muttered. Princess Celestia walked out the door, until Blueblood called out to her.

"But, Princess, who will take over this school? It is named for you, after all. Will Twilight take it over or will you—"

"Oh, I'm sure that we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. Don't worry, it will still be open. Just keep doing what you've been doing," she said, and closed the door behind her.

"But what about our funding, our curriculum—" he started, but she was already out of earshot.

Once he was certain that Princess Celestia was out of hearing range, he levitated a seat cushion over to himself and screamed into it. Though he was a grown adult, a few tears came to his eyes.

The princess was dying and appointing TWILIGHT SPARKLE as her successor!? Twilight Sparkle, the same pony who nearly destroyed Ponyville when she had enchanted a doll with dangerous, forbidden mind-control magic? And received a mere slap on the wrist for it? Twilight, the same pony whose friends quite literally crashed the Grand Galloping Gala? Twilight, who was in her early twenties and was still a young mare by all definitions?

_Maybe I am being too hard on her; she did save Ponyville and Equestria on numerous occasions,_ he thought to himself. Maybe… but she did that in concert with five friends. She did not deserve any more credit for saving Equestria than the others who had wielded the Elements of Harmony alongside her. Not only that, but Princess Celestia and Princess Luna could have easily done the same and wielded the elements themselves. Prince Blueblood was magically gifted himself, and had no doubt he too could wield the element of magic if it was required of him.

He fumed for a few more minutes about this, and then calmed down. But then he remembered how dismissive Celestia had been about her own school, and he became enraged once more. This was HER school, but Blueblood seemed to take more pride in it than SHE did!

_Does she even care about the school at all?_ He wondered. _She certainly doesn't care about the curriculum, or the funding. That's abundantly clear. She may shed tears at public memorials but she doesn't actually care about the bullying or the lives lost to it in that horrible massacre, either, or she'd let me expel these bullies._

Why did Celestia bother to even run a school for gifted unicorns if she did not take an interest in it? The only reason that Blueblood could think of was the scrolls in the Canterlot Archives which only graduates of the school could access. That and, as was now apparent, she probably needed a place to groom the successor to her throne when one would be needed. Perhaps that was why she was so dismissive of his concerns. She now no longer cared. Why would she spend money funding her school when she had picked a successor years ago? Was the school's sole purpose to find a successor?

_Then why not shut it down?_ He wondered. If it were simply a royalty-grooming school, why would Celestia have kept it open once she realized that Twilight was princess material? Also, surely the Princess wouldn't have kept the school open for over 1,000 years just to appoint a single successor. It must serve some other purpose besides just a place to find an heir. But what could it be? Why did Princess Celestia own a school for gifted unicorns? And why just unicorns? She didn't have a School For Gifted Pegasi or a School For Gifted Earth Ponies. In fact, she didn't have any other schools at all. There were public schools which she funded, but those were run and owned by local governments. Why did this school exist?

He thought of the motto of the school, _"Unicórnis magnam monitis animos magicales."_ All it meant was "teaching great unicorn magical minds." Obviously that's what the school did, but _why_? He had asked Princess Celestia when he took the Dean's chair why she had a school for unicorns rather than earth ponies or pegasi. She had told him that she thought magic was very special and she wanted to encourage learning of it. But he didn't really buy that explanation. Especially since magic education in Equestria's public schools was severely lacking. Most unicorns didn't even know how to teleport!

Blueblood figured that he should know, both out of curiosity and because he _was_ the dean, after all. Blueblood left his office and walked off towards the library, determined to find out the reason his school existed. What he found, however, would shock him.


	2. Tin Foil Horn

Prince Blueblood read many old history tomes in the Canterlot Archives, looking for any trace of history about Celestia's School founding.

He found an old manuscript that was several hundred years old. It read, _"So much of the history was lost in the great book burnings during the Nightmare Moon Rebellion that it is nearly impossible to get an accurate account, but from what we have pieced together the post-Discord, pre-Nightmare Moon Rebellion period was mostly peaceful, with one exception: King Sombra rose to power briefly in the North. His name has been all but forgotten, as has even the existence of the Crystal Empire over which he ruled. This is not surprising since by one account he ruled for a month, by another account he ruled for two weeks, but needless to say he ruled for not very long at all._

_By all accounts he used his great power to drag the kingdom down into the depths of the earth, where it lays largely forgotten. Thus, mainstream historians do not pay it much attention. However, the authors of this history book beg to differ; Sombra's rule over the Crystal Empire was as important for the development of Equestria as the Nightmare Rebellion itself."_

Prince Blueblood knew this information, having heard as everypony else in Equestria about the return of the long-forgotten Crystal Empire. But he read on and discovered more information which he did not know,

"…_So Celestia and the Princess of the Night defeated Sombra in the year 623 of Celestia's rule. Now shortly upon their return they set a few proclamations into motion, which caused quite a stir at the time, but which the average citizen was happy to obey._

"_The Princesses decreed that they shall be the ones to raise the sun and moon rather than the unicorns. The reason given to the public at the time was that Celestia and Luna wanted to take up an act which would instill unity in the populace. However, the proclamation event was not open to the general public, only lawponies, and as one of the few hundred privileged attendants at the time would theorize, Celestia did not trust the unicorns with the power anymore since Sombra was a unicorn._

" '_He who controls the sun and moon controls the power of life and death itself, and the princess has just seen a unicorn who wrought much death with his magic. No surprise, then, that she wishes to protect her own power,' The unnamed attendee said."_

Blueblood was intrigued. He had been to Hearths Warming Eve pageants as a colt and he knew that long ago the unicorns had moved the sun and moon, and that now it was the Princesses who did it. Like so many others, though, he had been told all of his life that Celestia did it because it was her royal duty, and that she did it to serve Equestria. He had never heard that Celestia simply didn't trust unicorns to raise the sun. He kept reading,

"_This set into motion events which later became known as The Nightmare Moon Rebellion, directed by Luna, the Princess who now rose the moon. This particularly loathsome moon monarch also saw to it that many histories were burned during her ransack of the libraries, thus the difficulty in gathering information._

"_The laws about the heavenly bodies were not the only new laws. The second law was that Everfree was no longer to be the capital; it was to be moved to Canterlot… most of the unicorns of Canterlot did not mind that their city was now open to pegasi and earth ponies, but a few raised a stir about having to now associate with the non-magical races. Princess Celestia responded by suppressing demonstrations, and eventually the nay-sayers obliged begrudgingly. As the unicorns were never large in number they never did have a city all to themselves again, though they continued to make up the majority of Canterlot up until the time of this writing._

"_Also, Celestia was to run Starswirl's School For Gifted Unicorns and limit access to the scrolls which taught the black magic that Sombra used. Only the most gifted and trusted unicorns could use it: graduates of Celestia's unicorn school. Along with black magic, all sorts of other useful types of magic were restricted such as time travel and invisibility. There is no record of Sombra having used the latter two spells at all; nevertheless, his rule was seemingly used as justification for their banning."_

Blueblood was shocked to learn this information. This history was not at all what he had been taught. Nopony ever told him that Canterlot had once been a unicorns-only city. But after he thought about it, he guessed that it DID make sense. It was roughly in the same area that the old unicorn kingdom of Unicornia had been before the union of the three tribes. The pegasi had Cloudsdale, the earth ponies had Appaloosa and Fillydelphia, and the unicorns… well, they used to have Canterlot but now they had nothing. He wondered why that was. Celestia granted land for new cities to be built; had no unicorn ever wanted to establish a city for exclusively unicorns? Or did they actually try, but Celestia turned them down? He did not know.

One thing he noticed about this history that struck him was that all of the changes made, with no exception, had to do with unicorns in particular. No restrictions on earth ponies or pegasi had been passed. They still grew food and controlled the weather, but Celestia raised the sun. None of their natural abilities were illegal to use or teach, not even the potentially-lethal Sonic Rainboom. But that made no sense. Simply because Sombra was a unicorn, Celestia would treat unicorns differently? Did Celestia have some sort of problem with unicorns?

He walked out of the library but then stopped in his tracks and said aloud to himself, "No, come on. What, will you put on a tin foil hat next, Blueblood? Stop indulging in conspiracy theories. Celestia doesn't have a problem with unicorns. I've never even heard anypony else say that besides this book."

But was it a conspiracy _theory_, or an actual conspiracy? The book that he read was a history book, and all of the other information he had read in it seemed to be correct. The problem with Equestrian history is that, due to the great book burnings, there are many conflicting accounts. Maybe the author was speculating and attributing motivations to Celestia that she didn't have?

_Okay, let's go with what I know. Earth ponies and pegasi both have cities of their own, as do crystal ponies, but unicorns do not. FACT. Celestia only runs a school for unicorns, none of the other races. FACT. She runs the school as if she doesn't particularly care for her students' education. FACT. The pegasi control the weather, the earth ponies grow food, and Celestia raises the sun. She could just let the unicorns do it and save herself the trouble, but she doesn't. FACT. Spells are restricted arbitrarily, while none of the natural abilities of the other two races are restricted. FACT._

Five indisputable facts that he knew for sure about the way that Celestia governed. She sure seemed to dole out different treatment to unicorns than to the other two races. If just one or two of these facts were correct, it might be a strange coincidence. Three facts would be more than odd. But five? Perhaps it was a true conspiracy and she really DID mistrust unicorns. That actually made more sense to Blueblood than that all of Celestia's policies just happened by pure chance to negatively affect unicorns. But why unicorns? _What is the trouble with unicorns?_

The thoughts ran through his mind as he walked out of the library. Surely other races of ponies needed to be watched and restricted, not just unicorns. Pegasi could make large tornadoes. Earth ponies could tame dragons and other ferocious beasts. And unicorns… well, unicorns could do all sorts of things, come to think of it. He thought of some of the bright and gifted students he had in his school over the years. No earth pony or pegasus could ever match the feats performed by unicorns he had seen in his eighteen years at Celestia's School. And this wasn't even the best school anymore; he could hardly imagine what some of the brightest minds in other schools were capable of.

Dragons are not much good if one can go back in time and prevent them from having been born. Tornadoes are not much good if the pegasi can't see your opponent to strike him down with one. Dragonfire attacks are not much good against someone who can teleport out of the way. And none of it is good against foes who have the ability to entrance opponents or control their minds, which some particularly gifted unicorns like Twilight Sparkle could do.

_But not all unicorns have these powers; these are rare abilities. In fact most of the unicorns even at this school do not have these powers_, Blueblood thought. But maybe that was the point. Maybe a lot more unicorns COULD have these powers, but Celestia was preventing challenges to her rule by ensuring the minimum number of unicorns would develop these abilities. That would be why she restricted access to this type of magic to only the highest-level graduates of her own school. And, at least from his own experience, she limited the number of graduates by arbitrary rules and restrictions such as friendship courses, or a hostile school environment, or high tuition. Those very few who succeeded in spite of all of this were allowed to use the spells.

Blueblood's eyes widened. Now it all made sense. This explained Celestia's obstructionist conduct. This explained every action and inaction she had ever taken for this school. There was no other explanation; her actions were either deliberately malicious or woefully incompetent, and Blueblood refused to believe that a princess who had maintained her rule for eons and raised the sun every day was incompetent.

And THAT was why Twilight Sparkle had been chosen to be on the throne. It was solely because of her incredible gift with magic. No other reason. It was not because she was a just ruler, a good leader, or because she was level-headed in a crisis, because in Blueblood's estimation she wasn't. It was because she was the best at magic and Celestia had no choice but to give her a leadership role, lest she challenge Luna after Celestia died. This way at least, she would be on equal footing with Luna and not feel slighted. This way, she would know the restricted magic and be able to use it to keep her subjects in line.

_But it didn't have to be this way,_ Blueblood thought. The Crystal Empire was a unique situation. King Sombra was one incredibly powerful unicorn in a population of non-magic users. If there had been another magically-trained unicorn around to stop him, he wouldn't have taken over the Kingdom. If the spells in the Canterlot Archives were open to the public as they were in Sombra's time, Blueblood was confident that nopony would misuse them, and if they did they would be dealt with in short order.

Then again, Prince Blueblood recognized that some of the spells were indeed dangerous. He disagreed with Celestia but certainly understood her rationale behind locking up some spells to only trusted individuals. He simply disagreed that her poorly-run school should be the test required to use them.

But he wondered how deep Celestia's plot went. If unicorns at his school were prevented from reaching their full potential in magic, and this was a school specifically for magic, how bad of an education in magic were the unicorns in regular public schools receiving?

Blueblood thought of all of the unicorns he had ever met in his life. Almost all of them knew telekinetic magic, but this was a basic spell that comes naturally and is quite easy to learn, and many ponies do not even need to be taught how to use it. But moderate and even lower-difficulty spells? Most unicorns did not even know how to teleport. He hardly ever had seen unicorns on the street teleporting around. And yet, in theory, any pony with a working horn on his head should be able to. It did not require any special gift.

From all of the magical science theory that he was aware of, teleportation should come as naturally to a unicorn as flight does to a pegasus. It takes training and learning, just as flight does, but in theory anypony should be able to do it. But then again, he remembered, there were public flight schools open to all pegasi in cities such as Cloudsdale, but no magic schools that were free of admission.

_Fact number six._

Most unicorns simply attended schoolhouses with their earth pony peers in whatever towns they lived in and sat in the exact same classes, which obviously did not include instruction on magic. The classes were reading, writing, and arithmetic, which were very important, but were not magic-related.

Blueblood stopped in his tracks as he walked back to his office, as he suddenly realized the gravity of this situation. Celestia, through her various actions and inactions, had hobbled the magical development of innumerable unicorn youths throughout the nation. He thought of how, in some far off foreign lands of which he had heard, literacy rates were below 30% due to inadequate access to schooling. Such was even the case in Equestria itself a few centuries ago. But Equestria nowadays had very good literacy rates, yet terrible rates of magical knowledge.

But Equestria, unlike these other nations, had NO excuse for this magical illiteracy. Public schools existed nearly everywhere in the Kingdom, and he saw no reason why magical classes should not be available for unicorn students in much the same way that pegasi could go to flight school. Did Celestia do this on purpose for the same reasons that she locked up the advanced spells and took away the power to raise the sun from the unicorns? Because she simply did not trust the unicorns with even the most basic level of power? He realized the answer must be yes, as he could see no other justification for such an oversight.

He had often lamented at the state of magical education in Equestria before, but he had never stopped to think that it was deliberate. Now, after reading what he had read, he highly suspected it. He had never realized that Princess Celestia had deliberately kept generations of unicorns from realizing their magical potential; not because there were no schools available, not because they couldn't learn magic, but simply because the Princess was afraid of them.

_Forget the spells in the Canterlot Archives,_ he thought, _we are talking basic magical competency here._He scowled at the sheer injustice of it, and at his powerlessness to do anything about it.

But then, a smile spread across his face. Was he really powerless, or did he merely FEEL powerless? He was a successful dean and a successful educator. He had experience teaching for eighteen years, and still taught a few classes on the side in addition to his duties as dean.

He may not have the power to affect change in Celestia's school, but who said he had to stay here? He could put in his resignation tomorrow. Why stay at this failing school when he could actually make a difference?

Yes, that was it! He finally realized what he wanted to do with the rest of his life. Celestia's School was a joke. All of these students already would learn how to use their powers. If he really wanted to reach ponies with magic, he would have to go out to the common pony. He would have to teach them his knowledge.

He would have to write a book.


	3. Hit the Books

In the streets of Canterlot, ponies were jubilant as the royal parade was underway. Excited onlookers threw confetti, cheered and screamed as Twilight's carriage and royal procession passed them by. The coronation of a princess was a once-in-a-lifetime event, happening so rarely that most ponies couldn't even name the century in which the last one happened.

Usually the only royalty in Equestria were already related to Princess Celestia or Luna in some fashion and simply received their title at birth. But Twilight, needless to say, was a special circumstance, having been born to mere commoners.

Twilight Sparkle was quite ecstatic. She smiled and waved to the crowds of onlookers from her carriage, throwing taffy and chocolate candy out for the children.

"We love you Twilight!"

"Twilight, you're the greatest!"

"You're the best princess ever!"

She relished in the accolades and shouts of the crowd.

"Wow, Twilight, they really love you," Spike the dragon commented. He sat next to Twilight on her carriage as they rode down the street.

"Yeah. I almost can't believe it. It's so unreal, I'm worried I might wake up. Pinch me, I must be dreaming!" Spike pinched her.

"OW! Those claws really hurt, Spike!"

"Sorry, I didn't think that alicorns felt any pain," Spike apologized.

"Yes, the only difference between alicorns and regular ponies is that alicorns have traits of all three pony races and have enhanced magic and live a lot longer."

"How did you become an alicorn, anyway?"

"All Celestia did was just cast a spell on me. It was weird. I'm sure she'll explain it to me when we get back to the palace."

The two of them continued to wave at the enthralled onlookers until finally they reached the giant garage of the palace. After they dismounted, a valet led them into the castle into a small room with a table and a fireplace. Princess Celestia sat at the table and invited Twilight and Spike to sit down with her.

"Now that we are alone, Twilight, we can finally talk. We have so much time and so little to talk about!"

"Don't you mean so much to _talk_ about and so little _time_ to talk?" Spike asked.

"Actually, no. We have all night to talk if we needed it. And I do not in fact have that much to say, at least for the time being."

"Oh."

"So, Twilight. There is a reason I have crowned you a princess. Do you know what that reason is?"

"Because I wrote a new spell and saved my friends from having the wrong cutie marks?" Twilight guessed.

"No. Though your magical ability was the prime reason I chose you instead of another, I would not have made you a princess unless I needed another princess. That reason is because you are my new successor."

"So I'll raise the sun and hold court and throw the Grand Galloping Gala and do the other things?" Twilight asked, her jaw dropping several inches.

"Yes. Princess Luna will continue to raise the moon. Do not worry about learning the spell, you will have plenty of time."

"But, I don't understand, Princess. Why are you handing over your role to me? Can't you keep raising the sun?"

Princess Celestia looked down at her student and lowered her voice, speaking, "No, Twilight, because I am dying."

Twilight stared blankly at the princess for a solid minute. Her lower trembled as a single tear streamed down her face. Then, she broke down crying.

"But… but… you can't die! You're the princess!"

"Twilight, my power is weakening. I have known this for many years. The years of raising the sun and moon by myself have taken their toll on me, and Luna's return three years ago was too little, too late to save me from my ultimate demise. Why do you think that I have paid such close attention to you and have personally taught you? This is a rare honor. I have suspected since your entrance exam to my school that you would be my first pick for successor, and over these past three years since you moved to Ponyville you have proven me right time and time again."

"H-how much l-l-longer do you h-have?"

"Two years, three at the most. I first suspected that the end was imminent when I failed to defeat Queen Chrysalis during the Royal Wedding. I had never been defeated in battle before that. It was quite humiliating for me, but thankfully my subjects did not question me and my legitimacy as you and your friends were able to defeat the changelings in due time.

"I spoke to several doctors but none of them knew what was wrong. All they could tell me was that my power was weakening and that my heart rate was dangerously low, and at the rate I was progressing I would be dead in less than three years. And I felt weakened. I had so little energy that I could hardly get out of bed in the morning to raise the sun. After a few months, I was unable to raise the sun without the help of Luna.

"I knew what I had to do, and I knew that you only needed to pass one more test to be truly ready: a test of magic and friendship. I set up the cutie mark test for you and your friends, which you passed with flying colors. I then transferred all of my power to you, making you an alicorn. However, this diminished my own power even further."

Twilight let it sink in for a few moments before replying, "But why me?"

Celestia replied, "You have demonstrated the most magical talent of anypony I know. If anypony were able to raise the sun by herself, it would be you."

Twilight thought about this for a moment, then asked, "Why does it have to be just me? What if I fail? You can't just give the job back to the unicorns and have them raise the sun and moon like they did thousands of years ago?"

"I would, Twilight, but raising the sun and moon is too big of a responsibility to leave to non-royalty. You and you alone have proven yourself worthy."

"But I still might fail, and—"

"Don't worry, Twilight. You have at least two years to learn how to raise the sun."

Spike added, "Yeah, Twilight, when have you ever not been able to learn a new spell? You're great at magic!"

"I guess you're right, Princess. I'm just so sad that you're dying!" Twilight ran over and hugged the Princess. Celestia patted her on the head.

"There, there, Twilight. I'll always be with you in your heart. Just remember that far more ponies depend on me than you, and now they will depend on you. This will give you strength. Now, remember when you asked me if there were any books you needed to read on being a princess?"

"Yes."

"Well, there are none on how to be a ruler and an effective leader. Some ponies have _tried_ writing these books, but none of them have had the same level of experience as I. I shall give you those lessons personally. However, there are books on how to raise the sun and moon, written by the ancient unicorn astrologers who used to do exactly that. They are in the restricted section of the Canterlot archives, next to the time travel spells.

I want you to start researching those books, as moving the heavenly bodies is the most complex spell imaginable, let alone for a single pony, alicorn or not. I don't expect you to learn the spell for months. But when you do, come and see me. We will then continue your education on a topic that is just as difficult as sun-raising: how to effectively, fairly, and justly rule such a large and diverse kingdom as Equestria."

"Okay, I guess I'll go hit the books," Twilight sniffled.

"That's my Twilight. So be sure to check out those books before you go back to Ponyville. I've already given the librarians my signature enabling you to take the books out of the restricted section and home with you. Just remember to keep them under lock and key, they contain sensitive information. Now go, you have some reading to do!"

Twilight cracked a slight smile. She loved reading, and it would at least take her mind off of the fact that her personal mentor of eighteen years was dying.

As he stood watching Twilight's royal procession from a fancy wine bar's balcony, Prince Blueblood sipped on a glass of merlot, floating the glass to his lips and taking dignified small sips as a prince ought to. Finding he had emptied his glass, he motioned to the waiter to fetch him another.

"I must say, that Twilight Sparkle is quite the magician. And to be made an alicorn—that is quite rare indeed!" Blueblood could hear the unicorn socialite Fancy Pants speaking to one of his friends.

"Not to mention that she and her friends defeated Nightmare Moon, Discord, and the Changelings!" the friend, a tall lime green earth pony stallion, replied, "Why, they do more to protect Equestira than the current princesses themselves."

"Let's not forget Sombra, he was quite the scary fellow from what I heard," Fancy Pants replied, "Twilight is the best candidate for being a princess, I must say, if ever a candidate was needed. Though I don't know why one is, our two princesses seem to be doing their job adequately enough without the extra help—but ah, I'm being a party pooper. Here's to Twilight!"

He and the others at the party raised their glasses into the air. Blueblood levitated his about an inch, and then downed the entire drink in a single gulp.

He was full of mixed feelings. On the one hoof, he was pleased to see a former student of his school succeeding in such a remarkable way. But on the other hoof, he was well aware of Princess Celestia's reasoning behind the decision and knew that the title was more than ceremonious, it conferred legitimate responsibility and leadership to Twilight Sparkle, who he did not believe to be fit for the position.

He also knew that none of the laws and secret policies of Celestia's regime against magic use and unicorns were likely to change, at least in the short run, unless he could exert some influence on his former student Twilight Sparkle to do so.

However, he also knew that he had a mission. And that mission began with something that he hated doing, but must do in order to succeed: small talk. Blueblood walked over to Fancy Pants.

"Hello Fancy Pants, what a pleasure seeing you here," he said to the aristocrat.

They shook hooves. "I say, Blueblood! I haven't seen you in quite some time, old chap. How are things going with the school?"

"Oh, it's going well. A lot of bright young minds there, but I have decided to quit and do something else with my life."

"Oh? And what is that?" Blueblood could not tell if Fancy Pants was taking a legitimate interest in him or just feigning it for the purpose of small talk. But he must spark the conversation somehow.

"I have decided to teach magic to the masses. You see, in Celestia's school, most of those unicorns are already gifted. It's called her school for _gifted_ unicorns, after all. So most magic comes naturally to them, and we as teachers must simply guide them along their journey. We are the stars in the sky that guide them, as you can see symbolized by my cutie mark."

Fancy Pants raised his head. "Ohhhh! That's what that pointed star on your flank is! I always surmised it was a family crest or something."

Blueblood responded, "No, that is a common misconception. But, anyway, Celestia's School is all well and good, but what about the vast majority of unicorns out there? Our public schools are not providing them with the education they need. Most of them do not even know how to teleport. A unicorn might as well be lacking in algebra."

Fancy Pants let out a chuckle, "Blueblood, you have been in academia for too long. Most ponies don't know about philosophy either, but that's because, like teleportation, it is an advanced concept for experts to deal with."

"You are wrong. Some things do require innate skill to learn and perfect. Most ponies could never perform spells such as time-travel or invisibility or hypnotism, it's true. But teleportation is not one of those advanced skills. Let's take your philosophy example, for instance. If I told any mentally competent pony in Equestria about the principles of utilitarianism versus duty ethics, and explained it in simple enough language, they could understand what was once a foreign concept.

"The key is education. What if I told you that any young unicorn could learn to teleport and could learn to do it in a week or less, and adults could learn to do it in an hour or less?"

Fancy Pants chuckled again, "Then I would tell you that you might need to be on the radio selling such promises for only five payments of twenty bits!"

"Alright, Fancy Pants, do _you_ know how to teleport?"

"No, I can't say I have ever tried. In the schools I went to it was not taught, and I have been told that it is a difficult thing to master. Is it really so simple? The only sort of magic I know is levitation, like most other unicorns." He levitated his wine glass up to his lips to demonstrate.

"How can you say it is difficult if you have never tried?"

"Because others have told me it is difficult."

"And I suppose that others have told you it is difficult to make a million bits?"

"Well if they did, I wouldn't believe them. Making money is quite easy! Just invest your money wisely in a place in the market where you know it will pay good dividends and wealth is assured!"

"Do you know that many parents and teachers tell their children that it is hard to make money? That wealthy ponies are greedy and only got their money through cheating and by stepping on the backs of others? That you have to 'know the right pony' to get anywhere in life?"

"I do know that they tell them this. And it's a good thing they sell these lies, for such defeatist propaganda for them means less competition for me!"

"And what if I told you that teleporting is to you the same as earning a million bits to those children?"

This made Fancy Pants pause for a moment in thought. He replied, "Well played, Prince Blueblood! Alright, I do not have an hour to give. I have only five minutes to give, for the markets close shortly and I have many stocks and bonds to trade."

Blueblood gulped. Could he give a crash course on teleporting so quickly? He had to, if he wanted any chance to connect with the rich stockbroker.

The Prince replied, "Then let's get you out of here as quick as possible. In fact, why don't you try and teleport down to the front entrance of this bodega."

"That sounds good. Now teach me, how is it that I can learn to teleport in simply five minutes?"

"Alright. I shall use an analogy. Look back on all of the years of your life. Look at this time five years ago, for instance. It was a long time ago, wasn't it?"

"Yes, it was."

"But now it seems a distant memory, in fact it seems as though it was over in the blink of an eye, though it did not seem so as you were living it."

Fancy Pants sighed, "Yes, it all goes by so fast, doesn't it?"

"You should realize then that there is no time. It is inevitable that time passes, you simply live in each moment that you happen to be in. But in retrospect, it is instantaneous. It is as if you blinked your eyes and you were there."

"Yes."

"That same feeling is that which you get when you teleport, when you are suddenly thrust into another space by magic. You feel as though you have simply blinked your eyes and it's already there. But instead of time, you are dealing with space. You either will walk to your destination or you will teleport, but either way you will get there and it will all seem like the same amount of time in the end: simply the blink of an eye."

Fancy Pants thought about this for a second. He adjusted his monocle and stroked his moustache, deep in thought. "So you are saying that I must simply feel its inevitability and I will teleport?"

"Yes."

"Alright. Here it goes," His horn began to glow. Blueblood was excited. Fancy Pants was going to do it!

But his horn dimmed once more.

"Ah, I can't seem to make it happen. But I don't suppose that it is all that important. Why am I dealing with teleporting when I can walk for a mere forty feet down the stairs and end up in the same spot anyway? It's just a matter of a few seconds."

Blueblood had dealt with this sort of objection from students before. It was a common one: the "it's not like I'm ever going to use it" objection.

"Where do you work every day?" Blueblood asked.

"I work in the stock market on Founders Street, of course."

"How far is your house from the stock market?"

"About a mile, give or take."

"Do you walk or take a cab?"

"Why, I take a cab of course! I'm too rich to waste time walking."

"So your time is more valuable than the cab fare?"

"Yes."

"How long does the ride take?"

"About ten minutes, give or take, depending on the traffic."

"What if I told you that you could teleport it in five minutes, and eventually in two minutes when you get enough practice?"

That got Fancy Pants thinking. He looked up at the ceiling, doing some math in his head.

"I could save ten bits every day on cab fares, and hundreds of bits every day in terms of my time. That is quite intriguing."

"Then you will take the time to learn it? For all the thousands of bits that it will save you over the course of your life? Are you willing to stick with me, after the markets close, for just this one hour?"

"Hmm… well, I guess I can take a shot at it," Fancy Pants answered. Blueblood grinned at this answer. He spent the next thirty minutes teaching Fancy Pants how to teleport until the aristocrat was confident enough in his abilities to try again.

"Here goes…" Fancy Pants charged up his horn once more. Suddenly, he disappeared with a flash of light.

He reappeared a few seconds later about five feet in the air above the sidewalk, and fell flat on his stomach on the pavement below. Other ponies looked in that direction, a teleporting unicorn not being a common sight.

"Goodness!" Blueblood followed after, teleporting down beside Fancy Pants to see if he needed medical attention.

"Are you alright? I am so sorry, I forgot to warn you that that could happen your first few times."

"Ugh." He got up and dusted himself off, "That… that was spectacular! Jolly good fun! Most alive I've felt in years! Who says an old dog can't learn new tricks!"

"See, I told you that teleporting isn't that hard," Blueblood said. "And soon you will get the hang of it and your teleports will land you exactly where you want them to. All it takes is a bit of finesse and mental acuity and you can do it!"

"So, you say that you want to teach teleporting to every unicorn?" Fancy Pants asked.

"That's my goal, yes. See, the problem is that most ponies have been told all their lives that teleporting is difficult or 'advanced magic' when it is not. It's not taught in public schools, or in most private schools because even many private schools have bought into the lie. Also, most ponies don't see it as useful. But nopony I ever have talked to has regretted taking time to learn to teleport. The amount of time it can save you over the course of your life is well worth the hour, two hours, at the most three hours that it takes up front to learn.

"And it isn't just teleporting, either. There are plenty of other spells that everypony can learn that are useful in day-to-day activities. Telepathy is another example. Why waste time describing how something looks to somepony when you can just beam that image directly into their mind? Or dowsing. Imagine you could find something that you've lost through magic, and you'll never have to spend hours searching for it again?"

Fancy Pants asked, "Well, why do you think that these spells aren't already known?"

Blueblood responded, "I don't know, exactly. I think our school systems haven't helped. Unlike flight schools for pegasi, there are no free magical schools for unicorns. They also don't teach spells in regular public school. Also, most magic books that have been written assume that the reader is already somewhat competent in magic, since they were written by magicians for magicians. Few are written for the common pony with basic, step-by-step instructions. There are no beginner-level, mass market magic books that I am aware of."

"So you are saying this is an untapped market?"

"Yes, to put it in business terms. I only hope that I can get the word out to unicorns. If they are as stubborn as you were to begin with—no offence—then I will have quite a challenge on my hooves."

Fancy Pants smiled, lighting up with an idea. "Mr. Blueblood, I have a proposition for you. I was in marketing for several years and I still know a few ponies in publishing firms who would be more than happy to publish any books you have to write. I also know ponies in the radio business and in advertising firms who could help us promote this.

"If you write a book at a third-grade reading level giving instructions on how to teleport, use telepathy, and any other sort of magic that is not common knowledge but which most unicorns could do if they were properly taught, I'll make it the bestselling book in Equestria. It'll be in every school, in every library and on every coffee table in every unicorn home before five years are up, guaranteed. Do that, and I will split any profits with you fifty-fifty."

"It's a deal!" They shook hooves on it. Blueblood was ecstatic. He would be able to spread his message of magic faster than he had thought! Blueblood did not know that Fancy Pants had such far-reaching connections. He knew that the stallion had connections, which is why he had struck up a conversation with the stock-broker in the first place, but he did not know that he was in touch with high-profile publishers and marketers! Now that he had a business partner, all he needed to do was hit the books. Or rather, start writing them.


	4. Seeds of Change

Prince Blueblood got to work on his book immediately. As the book was meant to be for unicorns of all abilities and ages, his first chapter was on basic telekinesis and horn illumination spells. Even though the vast majority of unicorns knew how to use these spells, he wanted his book to be a comprehensive guide to lifelong magic learning. So the chapter also included more advanced training on lifting hundreds of pounds.

Then he moved into the more challenging spells such as teleportation, telepathy, and dowsing, to which he devoted a chapter apiece. Though challenging, they were quite doable by anypony who was willing to put in the time to learn.

The final chapters were on advanced topics such as transfiguration, enchantments, and any spells which were not restricted knowledge in the Canterlot Archives. Blueblood did not know if just any old unicorn could learn these spells, but he figured he would include instructions for them anyway in case somepony who did have the innate ability to use these spells stumbled upon them and learned something useful.

He used the same sort of plain language that he had used when teaching Fancy Pants to teleport, and included all of the tips and tricks that he personally used for each of the spells in questions. He figured that his book would be simple enough for anypony to learn who was willing to apply his methods. He also included the same sort of persuasion that he had used to convince Fancy Pants that it was in his best interest to learn how to teleport.

"_Most unicorns learn basic telekinesis spells. Why do they do this? Because though it takes effort to learn at first, the time spent learning is less than the time saved by being able to do these spells. It takes far more time to do tasks like writing, cooking, or sewing with one's hooves and mouth than with telekinesis._

"_In the same way, you will learn that it is faster to teleport than to walk, that it is faster (and more accurate) to use telepathy to show ponies rather than tell them, that it is faster to use dowsing rather than to spend hours searching for something that you need to find._

He wrote whenever he had the chance. Usually, that chance was when he was in his office and had all other critical work done. Since he was salaried as Dean, he did not feel as if he was being paid for not doing his job as long as he did the absolute minimum requirements; no more, no less. In a few weeks he was done with his book. He brought a copy of it to Fancy Pants' house for him to review.

Fancy Pants skimmed the first chapter, and said, "By Jove, you've gone and written a masterpiece! I shall have to some of try these spells for myself. Now, let me get in touch with my publisher friend and we will have this on the shelves before the week is out!"

Blueblood met the publisher and signed a contract. The contract was the usual legal jargon, release of liability, agreement to share profits, use of name and likeness, all that. Now he just had to wait and see if his book was to become popular.

He first saw the fruits of his labor, or rather heard them, one day in his office about a week later. Blueblood had tendered his resignation effective at the semester end as soon as he signed his publishing contract. Though he still had regular dean duties to attend to, he no longer did any extra work such as soliciting donations. No, he did the bare minimum required for his job. As he was not busy with the same sort of paperwork he had been doing before, he was quite bored in his office one day, so he turned on the radio.

He heard the end of a pop song and a male voice, "That was Ernest Wembleforth and his new single, 'You Wanna Go Tonight.' We'll be back with Canterlot's Top Favorites on 103.1 in just a moment. But now, a word from our sponsors."

A second, female voice spoke, "Unicorns. Are you tired of walking everywhere? Wish you could fly really fast like a pegasus? Well you may not be able to fly, but you can definitely teleport and save some time out of your busy schedule. Skeptical? Think that sort of magic is too hard for you? I did too, until I read Doctor B. R. Fritz's book, Useful Magic Made Simple. It changed my life in a matter of weeks. Now, I'm teleporting to work, up the stairs, and even just for fun. I've also discovered the wonders of telepathy, dowsing, even transfiguration! To pick up a copy of Useful Magic Made Simple, head to your nearest bookstore. Mention this ad and get a discount of 20% off at select retailers."

Blueblood gawked. He was glad to hear a commercial for his book, but his name wasn't B. R. Fritz, it was Prince Blueblood! Why did they change it? He thought about it for a moment. Maybe his name wasn't exactly best-seller material. "Doctor B. R. Fritz" sounded like a smart stallion who you could trust. Blueblood sounded like, well, stuck-up royalty who was a bit too posh for the commoner. And to think, he would have sold it under his own name. There was a reason he wasn't in marketing.

Blueblood smiled; his ads were now on the air. _What a great development!_ He thought.

He glanced around his office. All of the paperwork that he had needed to do was in his "done" pile, and none remained in his "to-do" pile. Since he no longer put in any more than the minimal effort required for the job, he had nothing to do for the first time in many, many years in his career. What would he do?

He walked over to a cabinet near the front door of his desk and opened it. He took out the bin of prohibited objects that the teachers had confiscated over the years and set it on the floor. There were quite a few things, everything from baseball caps to bayonets, comic books to cigarettes. He grabbed a paddle-ball from the bin and walked back to his desk. He sat down and paddled it.

"One, two, three—darn! One, two—drat!" He continued attempting to keep the paddle ball in motion and discovered it was quite more difficult than he would have assumed. And those kids made it look so easy.

He continued paddling until his thoughts were disturbed by a teacher who rudely opened the door to his office without knocking. He looked up and quickly floated the paddle behind himself, blushing.

"Mr. Blueblood, you have a visitor."

"Oh, er, tell them to come in."

"Is that a paddleball you have there?"

"Um… yes, it is. I, er, confiscated it from a student this morning and was about to put it into the bin," he pointed to the bin that he had earlier taken out of his cabinet.

"Then why are you sitting behind your desk with it, when the bin is by the door and you would have passed by it while walking over to your desk?"

"I was… er, I was simply cataloguing it. Let's see. One red paddleball. Check," He scribbled on a random sheet of parchment with his quill. Then he walked towards the door and placed the paddle ball into the bin. He glanced through the door towards the hallway and saw Princess Celestia standing before him.

_Again? What could she want?_ Prince Blueblood looked at the princess and invited her in. They sat down and she spoke.

"Prince Blueblood, I am quite sorry to have received your letter of resignation. I just wanted to stop by and make sure that you didn't change your mind."

"I am absolutely positive, Princess. I am not going to be at this school after the end of this semester," he stated firmly.

"Well that's too bad."

"Sorry, but I have other projects I am working on.".

"You mean like that book that you have written on magic use?" Celestia asked.

"Ah, you have heard of it. Yes, I will continue my career as an educator, but it is now my goal to increase magical literacy among the general population rather than at this school."

"Quite a noble goal, Prince Blueblood. Magic is indeed a special thing and I'm glad to know you are encouraging its use. Hopefully something good can come out of it and more ponies can learn how their lives can be enriched by magic."

Blueblood scoffed internally at the princess, for he knew that her encouragement was just a thin veneer over a layer of resentment and fear. Thankfully, Blueblood thought, she wasn't the sort of tyrant who banned books, she was simply the sort who gently encouraged ponies not to read them.

"I wish you a long and prosperous writing career, and I appreciate you finishing out the semester here at the school. But, as I regret to inform you, I have decided that the school will be closed after you leave. I simply cannot find a suitable replacement for you, and without a good dean this school can't continue."

Blueblood gasped, "What do you mean? Of course there are replacements that you can find? I'm not the only one who is able to beg for donations, or hire new teachers, or discipline students, or fill out paperwork. Surely there must be others?"

"None as qualified as you, and none who can stop this school's steady decline from reaching a free-fall."

He was taken aback by this statement. Celestia had never acknowledged the failing state of her school until today. After all of the reports he had sent her over the years, he had gotten nothing back from her other than an "it'll be fine" or "you are overreacting" or even "who says we have to be the best school out there." So to hear her use such language was as shocking as sticking a fork into an electrical socket.

"The others I have looked at for this position simply do not care about this school the way that I do, or that you do. Since you are leaving, I've decided it is time to hang up the hat. Don't worry about our current students; their current credit hours will be fully transferrable to any public or private school in the country. Unless, of course, you change your mind."

Blueblood was furious, though he didn't show it just yet. _Did she have the gall to say "Do not care about the school the way__**that I do**__?" Celestia does not give a damn about the school that bears her name!_

Blueblood had had to wrestle with her for the most basic funding, the most basic curriculum changes, the most basic of accommodations. It was as if she had set up the school to fail upon deciding on her successor, Twilight, who she had been grooming since the year that Blueblood joined as dean and recommended she be removed from traditional classes.

"But what about the Canterlot Archives and the spells within? If only graduates of your school can use the spells, and your school no longer exists, then…"

"Then no one new shall be authorized to use them, but I will allow current graduates to continue using them. Yes. But those are such destructive spells anyway. Why would anypony even need to use them at all?"

"Because used responsibly, they are not harmful at all, and can even be helpful if used productively."

"And we tried the policy of allowing these spells to be general knowledge, many years ago, and it resulted in the death of hundreds of ponies at the hooves of an evil king using those very spells."

"Princess, with all due respect, I have done some reading into King Sombra, and there is only a historical record of him using black magic and enchantments, not time travel, mind control, celestial control, or invisibility. You banned those spells of your own volition."

"I am aware of this, but these spells are still dangerous and I don't see any need in keeping them around any longer. Why does a pony need to turn invisible or travel through time, anyway?" she responded.

Blueblood was absolutely livid. He could not believe that such important magical knowledge was simply being laid to waste! That this school was being closed! He burst out in anger and spoke a tirade which would be his last words to the Princess.

"Yes, because those spells were only a test to name your successor. Anypony who could master them all would be your successor simply because of how powerful the spells are. For you, being a princess is not based on whether a pony would be a good leader; it's simply because they know a few arcane tricks and could presumably use that in combination with alicorn-level power to keep Equestrians in line. You never intended to let those spells be learned by anypony at all, unless they were loyal to you and could use them for _your_purposes.

"Twilight is not a leader; she is a foal. She is a paranoid, mentally-unstable, socially awkward fool who happens to also be skilled with magic. Granted, she is probably the best magic user there is. But has Twilight ever managed hundreds of ponies? Has she ever dealt with losing anypony close to her? Has she ever disciplined anypony when it was required? Has she ever balanced a budget? Has she ever even managed to attend a prestigious social function without making an ass of herself? Because that's what she will have to do as princess. You expect her to learn all these things in less than three years?

"So she saved Equestria. Great. You know, the element of magic can be wielded by any unicorn with magical skill, not just her. I could wield it _myself_ if I wanted to. And speaking of magic, you want to know why I am quitting? Because you don't give a damn about this school or magic. You fear magic. That's why you have not invested any money or any public school resources in educating unicorns, something I am now doing in your stead. That's why you integrated Canterlot. That's why you took the job of raising the sun from the unicorns. You fear magic and you fear unicorns.

"Well guess what? You are as paranoid as Twilight, because there is nothing to fear about magic or unicorns. You are nothing more than a prejudiced, bigoted tyrant who has kept nearly a third of the population under your hoof for generations. And I will not stand for it any longer!"

The princess was quite shocked at Blueblood's rant, as she was not used to ever being spoken to in such an insolent manner.

She did not speak for a full minute. Finally, she simply said, "Good day, Blueblood," and left the room.

Blueblood's brow furrowed. He threw a potted fern on his desk against the wall, let out an audible yell, and tore at his hair. He had never been so enraged in all of his life. He only wished that he could quit his job twice.

He wondered why Celestia was closing down the school. Perhaps, now that she had appointed a successor officially, the school had served its purpose. Though it was possible, he didn't quite believe that, because why keep a school open for hundreds of years just for a single successor? His best guess was that perhaps it was a play to get Blueblood to stop writing his books, but he had called her bluff. Perhaps the school would actually remain open even in his absence for whatever its true purpose was.

However, Blueblood took her words at face value and assumed that the school would indeed close. So he finished out his tenure at the school. Over the next three months he wrote hundreds upon hundreds of letters of recommendation for his students who were to be transferring to other schools after Celestia's School closed, and he began settling issues of pensions, retirement, and transfers for his teachers. Though he easily could have just quit coming to work, he did not feel that it would be right to not give his students the best. It wasn't their fault that Celestia seemingly wanted them to fail. She might not have cared about their education, Blueblood thought, but at least he still did.

During and after Blueblood finished out the semester at Celestia's school, he continued writing more magical instruction books. He and Fancy Pants had decided that he would write an entire series of books, each one focusing on a particular type of spell in depth. The first book was on transfiguration.

He first saw the efforts of his writing pay off in an unexpected way. As he was walking down the street in Canterlot one day, a ginger-coated unicorn stallion ran up behind him.

The stallion called out, "Doctor Fritz! Doctor Fritz!"

Blueblood turned around. _He_ was Doctor Fritz.

"Ah, I knew it was you! I recognized you from your picture in the book. I just wanted to tell you thatUseful Magic Made Simple has changed my life. I never thought that I would be using advanced magic like teleportation or telepathy, but boy was I wrong! Thank you for writing your book and opening my eyes, Doctor Fritz!"

Blueblood smiled and replied, "Well, thank you for taking the time to learn about magic, sir. I am actually in the process of writing a new series of books which goes more in-depth into specific types of magic."

"I can't wait to read them, Doctor. Thanks so much. Now, I have to go, I'm running late for work. Or, no, wait I'm not, because I can just teleport there. Sayonara!"

He disappeared in a flash of blue light and a familiar *bang.* Blueblood smiled. He was glad to have helped that stallion out.

Over the next several months, Blueblood was approached by more and more ponies on the street who recognized him. He also saw more and more unicorns teleporting around. Though it had once been a rare sight, he now never went a day without seeing a bright flash of light and hearing the familiar bang of teleportation.

_Celestia may have cut down the trees of knowledge,_ he thought, _but I have sown the seeds of change._


	5. Leavesdropper

**Ponyville, April 2014**

"Spike, take a letter," Twilight Sparkle said. Her dragon assistant obliged and picked up a quill.

"_Dear Princess Celestia. After many months of reading and studying, I have finished learning the spell to raise the sun. I await your further instruction. Sincerely, Twilight Sparkle."_

Spike the dragon blew green flames at the parchment, which burned and floated out the window towards Canterlot on the mountaintop above.

"I wonder how long it will take for her to wri-*buuuurp!*"

A fiery scroll emerged from Spike's mouth before he could finish his sentence. He opened it and read aloud,

"_Dear Twilight. Glad to know you've progressed so quickly! It took me a full eight months to learn this, and it only took you six. How would you like to try your luck with setting the sun this evening? I'll meet you in my throne room at seven P.M. sharp. Don't be late! Sincerely, Princess Celestia."_

"She wants me to set the sun? TONIGHT?" Twilight gasped. "But, what if I don't get it right? And it's five PM! I'd better hurry if I want to make it to Canterlot on time!"

"You'll do fine, Twilight," Spike reassured.

"Thanks, Spike. I'll be back in a few hours."

Twilight Sparkle walked out onto the grand balcony of the castle, where she met the Princess.

Celestia said, "Now, Twilight, see if you can put what you've learned into practice." She motioned towards the sun on the western horizon.

Twilight nodded. She furrowed her brow and pursed her lips, deep in concentration as her horn glowed. She gritted her teeth and clenched in pain as the sun slowly inched closer to the horizon.

Finally, after a few minutes, Twilight Sparkle had lowered the sun.

"Good job, my faithful student. Now we can go inside and have a lesson."

Twilight started to walk but fell to the floor. Celestia walked over to Twilight and levitated the lavender alicorn with her magic, a yellow glow surrounding her. She carried Twilight off towards her private meeting room.

"Wenningsly, would you go get Twilight Sparkle a jug of water?" Celestia asked the pegasus at her meeting room.

"Certainly, your highness." the guard said as he ran off.

The meeting room was empty save for the Princess and her student. In the center of the room was a long rectangular table with several chairs at it. In the rear of the room by the door there stood two potted trees.

Celestia set Twilight down in a chair at the end of the table as the Pegasus returned with a tray in his mouth. The tray contained a gallon pitcher of water and a small paper cup. He set it down on the table in front of Twilight, bowed, and left the room, closing the door behind him. The three were now alone in the room.

Twilight levitated the pitcher up and poured water into the cup, which she downed in one gulp. She poured another cup and gulped that one down. Then she just skipped the paper cup and poured the pitcher directly into her mouth and quaffed the entire thing.

"Yes, the job of raising and setting the sun will cause you to become quite dehydrated. I would suggest drinking plenty of liquids from now on," Celestia advised.

"Thanks, Princess, I will."

"Now, are you awake enough to listen to what I have to tell you?"

"Yes," Twilight answered.

"Now that we are alone, Twilight, I can finally instruct you on how to lead and rule a kingdom. As a ruler, you have a duty to serve the citizens of this nation as their Princess. So pay close attention. There are five key commandments you must follow to be an effective ruler, if you want to both stay in power and maintain peace and harmony in Equestria.

"The first commandment is to be popular and well-liked. This is where your friendship studies will come in handy. Many rulers around this globe have been overthrown by their subjects because they were tyrants or heavy-handed in their rule. So make sure that your laws and rules are popular with your subjects, or you will find your head under the guillotine of revolutionaries.

"The second commandment is to be efficient. By this, I mean to not waste taxpayer dollars. You already manage your own time very well, now you must manage the time and resources of the kingdom well, too. If there is a better way of doing things, trim out the fat. Run the government like a business, except instead of making a profit your goal is to stay in power, stay popular, and maintain peace."

"On to commandment three, which has two parts to it. The third commandment is to:

A. Be proactive and try to prevent crises, but when one happens…

B. never let it go to waste.

"When the inevitable crisis _does_ happen, ponies will be a lot more receptive to anything you want to do in the face of it, so that you can then follow the first part of this commandment and prevent future crises. Remember when you used a forbidden mind control spell to enchant your doll and I had to step in and intervene?"

Twilight blushed and tilted her head down. "Yeah, I'm still sorry about that, by the way. I completely overreacted."

"Don't be sorry; it's in the past. You were concerned and I needed to address it. But remember how much more receptive your friends were when I told them that they should all write me letters instead of just you? Indeed, crisis management is a very important skill."

"Commandment four is to keep your friends close, but your enemies closer. Why do you think that I had you reform and befriend Discord? Even though I do not think he will ever be a truly good person in the way you and I are, I do think that he would respond better to having us reach out to him than he would if I simply kept him imprisoned in stone. Which he has escaped from before, and could've again. So why not have his release be on _my_ terms, when I was fully expecting and prepared for it? Now he knows what the consequences of any further rebellion on his part are, and he is free as long as he no longer causes chaos."

"Another example is Prince Blueblood, the dean of my School For Gifted Unicorns. He has always shown a desire for power, and he resents the fact that you were made a princess and ruler of Equestria and he is stuck managing my school, a job which he has recently resigned from. But I satiated his desire for power for years by giving him an administrative position full of tedious paperwork so that he would hopefully have his hooves full and be too busy to challenge my authority.

"And that brings me to commandment five. Do you know why I run a school for gifted _unicorns_ and not a school for gifted pegasi or earth ponies?" Celestia asked.

"I… um, I never really thought about it," Twilight answered.

"Because commandment five, the final and the most important commandment to staying in power is this: be suspicious of the unicorns."

"Okay Princess Celestia, I'll bear that in—wait, what?"

Twilight blinked a few times and shook her head.

"I'm sorry Princess Celestia, I've had a really long day and I'm exhausted from lowering the sun, but did you just say that I need to watch out for unicorns?"

"Exactly."

Twilight paused for a moment, and then finally responded. "What do you mean? I'M a unicorn!"

"No, you are an _alicorn_," Celestia corrected her. "And I have never distrusted _you_, Twilight Sparkle. I don't distrust _individuals_ unless an individual gives me a reason to distrust him. I just distrust the unicorn _race_in general, and it has probably saved Equestria from civil war, and saved me from losing the throne."

"But why?" Twilight asked, "What's the trouble with unicorns?"

"I'll explain that by using a hypothetical thought experiment. Say that ten of the strongest, most powerful members each of the earth pony, pegasi, and unicorn races set out to bring disharmony to the land and enslave its citizens as Sombra did to the Crystal Empire. To do this, they would need to overthrow me, first.

"Let's take rifles and guns out of the equation and assume each race is just using whatever their natural abilities are in their bid to dethrone me. We'll start with the ten earth ponies. What do you suppose would happen?"

"Um, they'd probably not get very far," Twilight guessed.

"Right. Oh, they'd cause some trouble, there's no doubt about that. They could knock over buildings, derail trains, trample ponies to death, cause a few earthquakes, and if they were skilled enough as herders they might even be able to rally one or two dragons to their side. But eventually they would be taken out. I'd deploy some snipers onto the rooftops, I'd have our magicians protect my palace with force fields which would be difficult for even strong earth ponies to break. They may be able to breach the force fields with their great strength, but it would take several minutes and I would of course have guards posted everywhere. I have run preparedness drills for such a thing with my guards and I am confident that we could suppress the rebellion in about a day.

"Now, let's move on to the ten pegasi. Since the sonic rainboom is an ability only Rainbow Dash can use, and the stare is just Fluttershy, let's exclude those from our example. So what do you suppose would happen?"

"You might have a bigger problem on your hands," Twilight said.

"Correct. Ten of the most powerful pegasi could probably cause a few F5 tornadoes, destroy plenty of buildings with lightning bolts, cause floods, snowstorms, blizzards, drought, wildfires, etcetera. They could also fly and would evade capture easily.

"But eventually, the Wonderbolts would capture them after a few days. We would watch the sky and track their movements and eventually, they would have to sleep. We would take them out one by one with snipers in the clouds. Again, I have run drills and have determined that we could suppress such a thing in about two or three days at the most.

"Now, on to the unicorns. What could the ten most powerful unicorns in Equestria do if they were unified against me?" Celestia asked.

Twilight seriously considered the question. She thought about all of the spells she had at her own disposal. If the next-most-powerful unicorn was even _half_ as powerful as her, Celestia would be in for a bad time.

"Well Princess, they might actually have a chance of succeeding in their plot," Twilight answered.

"Correct. Think of all of the various spells they would have at their disposal: invisibility, mind control, telepathy, teleportation, telekinesis, dark magic, force fields, fire spells, energy blasts, and of course control over the moon and sun… the list goes on and on. Unicorns are the most versatile race. Each unicorn wouldn't necessarily need to know each spell either, each unicorn could specialize in a particular spell and they could cooperate as a group.

"With their telekinesis they could easily derail trains, knock over buildings, and do the same sorts of physical destruction that the earth ponies could, maybe a bit less.

"They could be anywhere at any time, assuming they had access to invisibility, and would be nearly undetectable. The unicorns could easily evade capture, for they could teleport away whenever they found themselves surrounded. Teleportation would put them beyond detection, unlike the other two types of ponies who we can constantly track, for they could have teleported anywhere within a few-mile radius or larger depending on their skill in teleportation.

"They could protect themselves from bullets with force fields, and respond in kind with energy blasts. Though energy blasts are not nearly as lethal as bullets, they still do have the potential to sometimes kill and definitely to maim.

"They could enchant some wooden cottage with the 'want it, need it' spell, lure dozens of ponies in and set it alight. You remember the massacre which occurred at my school a decade ago. And, assuming that my snipers or army somehow managed to kill one of them, one of his partners could use a time-travel spell to go back and ensure it never even happened. Though the laws of physics prevent a unicorn from using such a spell more than once in his entire life, it would still be a problem and they would essentially have up to ten 'do-overs,' or 'extra lives' if you will, depending on how many of this band of rebels had the power to cast a time-travel spell.

"If they could figure out how to move the sun and the moon, then we would really be in trouble. They could essentially hold the entire planet hostage to their demands.

"As for breaching my castle and killing me or Luna, it would be easy. They could simply cast a counter-spell against the protective force field and enter by force. It would not take them very long, and they could avoid detection with invisibility.

"So as this example hopefully illustrates, unicorns are capable of waging quite asymmetrical guerilla-style warfare which I would be hard-pressed to respond to. All of the drills I have done with my guard have indicated mixed results. Though I am confident in my ability to respond to earth pony threats and pegasi threats and any combination of the two, I am less certain if I could effectively suppress a _unicorn_ rebellion. The drills and war games I have conducted for this contingency have been catastrophic at worst and inconclusive at best.

"If you need any more proof than this thought experiment, consider this. King Sombra overthrew the entire Crystal Empire 1,300 years ago by himself, and he was just one unicorn going against an army of hundreds and a civilian population of thousands. He had a few sympathizers, but he obtained power mostly by himself."

Celestia finished her lecture and waited for Twilight to respond.

"Well Princess, I guess I can see your point. I understand why you think that unicorns are more dangerous than the other two pony races. But what do you mean by 'be suspicious of the unicorns?' What actions in particular would I take?" Twilight asked.

"Simply apply the other Four Commandments to them more judiciously. I started this conversation by asking you why I have a School For Gifted Unicorns, and Commandment Four should provide you the answer: so that I may keep an eye on who exactly the most powerful unicorns are, and ensure that I know exactly who are the only legal users of the powerful spells such as time travel or invisibility that I just mentioned. Keep your enemies close."

"Why not just ban the spells outright?" asked Twilight Sparkle.

"And have those few who crave magical power, such as yourself or Blueblood or Trixie, resent me for it? Have them perhaps learn how to cast the spells on their own, without the scrolls? The way I have done it at least provides them with a legal outlet which _I can track_.

"Commandment Three answers both how and why I have locked up scrolls with some of these powerful spells I just mentioned such as time travel, mind control, dark magic and control over the heavens. When King Sombra came to power over the Crystal Empire, I took advantage of this crisis and prevented further crises by restricting these spells. That's when Luna and I began raising the sun and moon. I also took over Starswirl's School For Gifted Unicorns and made it my own, and made it a test for anypony who wanted to be able to legally use these spells. I structured it in such a way that only a very few students would ever make it to the top and actually graduate. What Blueblood sees as 'obstructionist' conduct on my part is actually deliberate.

"Those who did graduate from my school and were able to use the spells, like you, would hopefully be loyalists to me after years in my very own school. They would also, like you, be potential candidates to succeed me in the case of an illness, and be able to use those powers to effectively rule."

"So that's why you had me learn all those dark magic spells!" Twilight said.

"Correct," Celestia answered. She continued, "I also have prevented unicorn threats in other, subtler ways. I have taken steps to ensure that the feared group of a dozen or more unicorns never forms in the first place by limiting gatherings of large numbers of unicorns such as cities. Do you think that it is a coincidence that there are no unicorns-only cities, when both the pegasi and earth ponies have their own cities of Cloudsdale and Las Pegasus; Fillydelphia and Appaloosa, respectively?

"As you know, I must approve all land grants for new cities. Do you honestly think in all my years of ruling I have never gotten a request from a group of unicorns to form their own city? I have, but I have always had reasons to say no. 'Oh, that's where some endangered fox lives.' 'I already have another request for a city in that location.' 'You want to call your city WHAT now?' And the unicorns are none the wiser.

"And this is all to prevent any sufficiently large group of unicorns from gathering in any one place. Thankfully unicorns have never been as… _fruitful_… as the other pony races, so our country is only about 25 or 30% unicorn anyway. That helps."

Twilight noted, "Oh yeah, I remember reading about that in an anatomy textbook. Unicorn mothers are far more likely to miscarry or die in childbirth due to horn-related complications during delivery."

Celestia continued, "The only unicorn-majority city is Canterlot, though it is not unicorn-exclusive, as I ordered it to be integrated years ago when I took over Starswirl's school and moved the capital from the Palace of the Royal Pony Sisters in Everfree. And of course Canterlot is where I live so that I can keep an eye on the many unicorns who live here. I also follow Commandment One, to be popular, by throwing social events such as the Grand Galloping Gala to please the mostly-unicorn elite of Canterlot.

"I simply do not trust the unicorns as a race, and my position in power would be a lot more secure if the unicorns were gone. This isn't a slight against unicorns; if earth ponies or pegasi were as powerful as unicorns then I'd have the same sorts of policies in place for them. But they are not, and so I don't."

"Another tactic that I use: I discourage the use of magic itself in any way that I can without being overt about it. Every unicorn who discovers that his special talent is actually embroidery or cooking or painting instead of magic is one less potential threat to my rule, after all.

"Why is there a 'Best Young Flyers' competition but no 'Best Young Magicians' competition? Because I would never even think to start it. Why are there free, public flight schools for young pegasi, but no free, public magic schools for unicorns? Every time that somepony on the Board of Education brings up teaching magic in schools, I simply argue that magic is too dangerous to teach in schools to young fillies and colts, and that curriculum such as reading, writing, and arithmetic should take precedence."

"But magic isn't dangerous," said Twilight.

"Yes, but it CAN be, and that's the point," the Princess responded.

She continued, "Why has Useful Magic Made Simple has been so popular lately? Blueblood is teaching magical spells such as teleportation, telepathy, dowsing, and other spells which any unicorn fifth-grader _could_learn, but were never taught in any public school, only in some private schools and my own personal magic school. Everypony has been led over the years to believe that these spells are hard when in reality they are very easy. After all, it's not taught in school, so it MUST be challenging. Not so. The book is essentially remedial magic. But of course, since the book is popular with unicorns and I don't want to be unpopular, I do not attempt to ban it or in any way go after it due to Commandment One."

"But I thought you said that Commandment Five was the most important?" Twilight Sparkle asked.

"Ah, now you are catching on! The commandments complement each other and must be weighed against each other. Though banning Blueblood's book may serve Commandment Five _slightly_, it would do_terrible_ damage to my objective of Commandment One. So I leave it alone and accept the fact that his book will become more popular and maybe more unicorns will discover that they can use far more magic than they ever thought possible. After I'm dead, that may be a problem that you have to deal with if they ever decide to rebel against you."

"Well, okay. I just never realized that you… actually discriminated against unicorns like that," Twilight said.

"It's a well-kept secret, and I always make sure that my motivations are hidden or obscured by other motivations. I know it is a lot to take in, and I know that as a former unicorn you still feel an attachment to your race, but you must learn to abandon this sentiment if you want to maintain power, peace, and security. You don't have to HATE unicorns, because most of them are perfectly okay ponies, just like most pegasi and earth ponies are. I don't hate unicorns. In fact, some of my closest confidants and allies are unicorns, and I entrust several high-level positions to unicorns, such as administration of my school or key guard and military positions. You'll notice that most of my guards are unicorns or pegasi, which is principally due to their power.

"No, hate of unicorns is not what you should do. Just be suspicious of them and tailor your policies such that you don't ever allow them to accumulate any threatening degree of power. Because as illustrated earlier with my group of ten rebels example, unicorns are a lot more threatening in terms of their per-capita ability to cause destruction than either pegasi or earth ponies."

Twilight sat back in her chair, eyes gazing off into the distance, contemplating everything that she had just heard. Was one of the requirements for staying in power and keeping Equestria united _really_ for her to treat unicorns with a degree of mistrust? It didn't seem possible.

But Twilight was all about logic, and Celestia's arguments for her policies did make logical sense to her. It was true that if any particular group of ponies posed a threat, unicorns would be the most destructive and serious of these threats. Twilight could certainly see why Celestia had locked up dangerous spells and prohibited their use, or why she had taken over the job of raising the sun and moon. But did the perceived threat from unicorns really justify stifling education or preventing cities from being built?

Celestia interrupted Twilight's thoughts, "I've said a whole lot this evening, and I believe you might need some time to digest what I have told you. We will continue this discussion in the morning at sunrise. By the way, do you wish to try your hand at raising the sun tomorrow?"

"Sure," Twilight said.

"That's my faithful student! Now let's go off to bed. You can sleep in my guest chambers this evening so that you don't have to fly all the way back to Ponyville."

The two walked back towards the door to the meeting room, when all of a sudden a white flash lit up the room, emanating from one of the two potted trees.

Suddenly, in place of the tree stood a great beast with the tail of a dragon, head of a goat, claw of an eagle and paw of a lion. He towered over the two ponies and blocked their way to the door.

"My, my," the draconeqqus Discord snickered, "What an interesting conversation that was!"


	6. The Princess Predicament

"Discord!? What are YOU doing here?" Princess Celestia demanded.

"Oh, just trying my idle hand at shape-shifting. Come to find out, nopony even notices you as a tree! I asked Fluttershy for good disguise ideas, and she recommended it to me. I was going to _leaf_ you two alone but that conversation was so interesting that I simply had to comment on it."

"So I assume that you heard… _everything_?" Twilight asked, shirking back.

"Yes, I did, Princess Twilight. Congratulations on lowering the sun, by the way, that was quite a display. Oh, and of course, since I was busy and was unable to attend, happy late congratulations on your Coronation as Princess. Glad to know your skill in magic finally got you someplace in life besides that dusty old library.

"But, Princess Celestia, I must say, if you are handing out princess positions on the basis of skill in magic, why didn't you make ME a princess? I'm great with magic!"

Discord stretched his hand out and reached behind Celestia's ear, and pulled out an ace of spades.

"Was THIS your card?"

Celestia yanked the card out of Discord's hand. "I didn't make you a _prince_ because I don't trust you, and your eavesdropping has confirmed my reasons for not trusting you. Even if you DID earn my trust, you are not a pony. I only award royalty positions to ponies."

Discord gasped and held up his hands to his mouth. "Not a pony, so I can't be a princess? Really,_racism_, Celestia? Though I suppose I should expect as much after hearing about the way you treat those poor old unicorns. Goodness, even with my ability to divide ponies for the sake of my own power, not even I would have thought to do the things you've done! Bravo, you've outdiscorded me!"

Discord clapped as he made confetti fall from the air. Celestia and Twilight brushed it off of their manes.

"Just tell us what you want, Discord," Celestia asked, inhaling deeply.

"Getting testy, are we Princess? Okay, fine, I will make it brief. Make me a princess—"

"_Prince_," Twilight corrected.

"—Prince, and I will leave you alone. I'll even help Twilight raise the sun every day. Remember how good at it I was when I turned Ponyville into my own personal utopia? Well that way, I can raise the sun and Twilight's magic won't slowly decay over the years like yours and Luna's has, and she can effectively live forever and rule the kingdom in peace and harmony for eternity! It will be like heaven on Equestria."

Celestia responded, "That would be a good deal if I didn't already know that you don't desire peace or harmony; you simply desire power and desire chaos to reign supreme. So no, I will not make you a prince."

"What happened to keeping your enemies close? If I'm a princess then that's about as close to you and Twilight as I can get!"

"Maybe I should have elaborated. Keep your enemies close, but don't be an idiot and put your main adversary on a level equal to you," Celestia scoffed.

"You mean like you did with Princess Luna after SHE reformed?"

"That was different," Celestia said.

"Why, because she's a pony and I'm not? I can be a pony, too, you know," Discord said as a flash of white light enveloped him, transforming him into a chocolate-coated unicorn stallion with a dark grey mane.

"Oh, wait, I forgot, you don't like unicorns. Hold on a second…" His horn glowed a bright yellow as two wings appeared on his back, and he was now an alicorn.

"See? Now I'm perfect princess material! So when's my Coronation? Can I get my own song? _The Princess Discord cometh, behold, behold…_"

"The answer is still no, Discord. I made Luna into a princess because she was already a princess before and had already proven her allegiance to me. You have not."

Discord scoffed, "I thought that I had proven my allegiance to you when I reformed."

"In a way, but I still don't fully trust you. Certainly not enough to make you a princess."

"_Prince_," Discord corrected her this time, "Well if that's the way you are going to be, then what's the point of behaving myself at all? I could've been out there making chaos reign supreme this entire time. But no, I had to play goody two-shoes because I thought that you would respect that. But I guess not.

"Well, fine then. If you refuse to make me a princess, I will bring about enough chaos to bring your kingdom to an end before you die. So, you have to choose what's more important… your kingdom, or having your protégé share power with me, power which I have already promised not to abuse."

"That's a false dilemma, Discord. We can just use the elements of harmony on you if you try any funny business," Twilight Sparkle said.

"Ah, that's only if you can _find_ me. I've been working on my shape-shifting and disguises. You won't be able to find me as easily as you did when I was sitting on my throne atop of Ponyville out in the open. I'll admit, I was brazen back then. But no more. This time, you won't know where I will be or when I will be there. I can be in any place at any time. I might not even strike until weeks from now. Who knows? But I will say that after hearing of the way you treat unicorns, I think I'll spare Canterlot. I think they've been through enough."

Discord disappeared in a flash of white light.

Celestia paused for a moment, gathering her thoughts, then said, "Well, Twilight, looks like you're going back to Ponyville. I want you and your friends to get the Elements of Harmony and be ready for Discord. He could pop up at any place at any time, and he can be in the form of anything, so be ready."

"Yes, Princess."

At 11:00 PM, Twilight slammed open the door of her library treehouse and galloped inside. She ran across the room by the glass case containing the Elements of Harmony, waking up Spike.

"Twilight? What's got you so frantic?"

"It's Discord, Spike. He told Celestia and I that he would bring her kingdom to an end! So I came back to get the elements," she said, lifting up the case.

Spike, watching this, asked, "Uh, Twilight? Shouldn't you be keeping those locked up in a safe someplace secret? If Discord had wanted to, he could have simply broken into the library, looked right across the room and saw that the elements were inside that transparent glass care, and then merely opened up the case and grabbed the elements and hid them from you. I mean, look, there's not even a lock on there or anything. And that glass looks pretty flimsy, so even if there _was_ a lock on it, he could have easily broken the glass. For a pony who was once worried so much about a disaster that you had the entire town safety-proofed, you really didn't think this one through, did you?"

"Well, Spike, I…" Twilight had _wanted_ to say that the glass was enchanted to prevent anyone from breaking it, but that actually wasn't true. The truth was that Twilight had made probably the biggest oversight in her life. Thank Celestia that Discord didn't notice.

"Well, I suppose I messed up, but Discord messed up too, because there was a giant security breach here that he could have exploited had he wanted to, but he didn't because I guess he just wasn't on his game," Twilight said.

Spike responded, "That's cool, I guess. I'd just keep those locked up in a safe in the basement in the future, instead of in a thin glass case on the main floor of a public library where anypony can just walk in and find them."

Twilight was mortified. She was usually so much more careful than that! Celestia had given the elements to Twilight for safe-keeping in case Discord had ever decided to go bad again, and now that he had, Twilight had left the Elements completely unguarded!

"Okay, Spike, I'm going to go give these elements out. I should be back in a jiffy." Twilight ran out of the room hurriedly.

"But Fluttershy, Discord has turned evil! You have to use the elements or he is going to destroy Equestria!" Twilight begged, standing at the front door of Fluttershy's cottage.

"Nope. A promise is a promise, and I simply will not break it just because of a threat. I have promised Discord not to use the elements against him, and I will not. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going back to bed."

"But what if he kills ponies?" Twilight implored. But Fluttershy simply slammed the door shut in her face.

"Ugh! You are so stubborn sometimes, Fluttershy! Sometimes I wish that you were still that meek scaredy pony that I met when I first came to Ponyville."

Twilight flew back off towards her treehouse. Maybe once Discord started his chaos, Fluttershy would reconsider.

True to his word, Discord did not strike the next day or even in the next week. Twilight spent the next week pacing around her room, worried that an impending disaster was coming. Eventually she gave up on worrying and took her mind off of things by reading and spending time with her friends, who were equally concerned. But they laughed and talked and kept their mind off of Discord as well.

Another week had passed, and Twilight had almost forgotten about Discord. One day though, she walked outside to get the morning paper and saw the headlines.

"Here we go…" Twilight said to herself as she read the paper.

THE MANEHATTAN TIMES

April 23rd, 2014

"_Giving Equestria the News Since 1831"_

KILLER DROUGHT DESTROYS CROPS IN SOUTHERN EQUESTRIA, FOOD SHORTAGES IMMINENT

The Appaloosa, Dodge Junction, Ponyville, Baltimare, and Fillydelphia regions of Equestria have recently been hit by a terrible drought. Temperatures have been in the 100s Fahrenheit for the past few weeks in these cities and the surrounding areas, and there has been zero rainfall. Pegasi have attempted to bring in clouds with much-needed rain, but the clouds have evaporated before they could be made to rain. Farmers are now reporting that their corn and wheat crops are dying.

"It's really bad," reports farmer Corn Rows of Dodge Junction. "We haven't been able to grow anything at all this year. It's planting season right now and if this drought doesn't ease up in time, we won't have any crops to harvest. This is the worst drought I have ever seen in my life."

The last major drought of this magnitude was the Great Famine of 1721, when a particularly dry season killed 90% of Equestria's crops. Thousands of ponies died from famine. Today, some grocers and food sellers are already reporting long lines and shortages.

"I've almost completely run out of cherries," said one Ponyville fruit vendor. "They've just quit shipping them to me. This is my last one. I'll give it to you for twenty bits." At last glance, ponies were lined up around the block for loaves of bread, apples, celery, and other food items.

However, the drought has not affected everypony. The City of Canterlot as well as the surrounding hills and valleys have been unaffected, though with its majority unicorn population the city has never seen much farming activity. However, farm equipment magnates Flim and Flam vow to change that.

"We can prevent a famine by growing crops in Canterlot!" The older brother Flam told reporters. "Even though there's not a whole lot of earth ponies here in Canterlot, it doesn't really matter because our tractor and combine harvester machines enable one pony to do the work of hundreds. Even a unicorn or pegasus can operate these machines if they happen to have earth pony blood in them, for instance if their parents were earth ponies. We'll have crops planted here in a matter of weeks. We're even giving new customers in the area a 50% discount!"

Continued on page two.

"Griffons Attempt to Negotiate Peace Treaty with Zebras," P. 4, Global.

"Dr. Fritz to Release New Magic Book" P. 6, Books.

"Manehattan Cougars Beat Vanhoover Hawks 42-23" P. 7, Sports.

Twilight set the paper down. Could this be the crisis that Discord had brought about? It hardly seemed that chaotic, since droughts happened in nature all the time. Though it did seem to be a deliberate attempt to hurt the nation of Equestria. If the drought was bad enough, then ponies could indeed starve to death.

Twilight ran over to Applejack's farm. She knocked on the barn door and Applejack answered.

"Oh, hey there Twilight. Come on in, we're just tryin' to stay cool in this heat."

Inside the house, the Apple family had set up a large electric fan in the corner, which blew cold air across the room. Big Macintosh sat on the couch, his tongue hanging from his mouth as sweat dripped down his forehead.

Twilight asked, "Applejack, have you been reading the news lately?"

"No, I haven't been. You know I don't pay no attention to politics and the like."

"Well, it has to do with the weather. Apparently there's a drought that's hit all of the southern part of Equestria and has been killing crops!"

Applejack responded, "Well shoot, Twi. I knew it was hot but I figured it was just Ponyville. I had no idea it was all of Equestria."

"Yeah. And I think I know who's behind it."

"Discord?" Applejack asked.

"Eeeeyup," Twilight responded. Big Macintosh sat up, looked over and raised an eyebrow at Twilight.

"Sorry, I know that's your catchphrase," Twilight apologized sheepishly.

Big Macintosh simply shrugged and lay back down.

"Oh, don't mind him, sugarcube. He's just been out there waterin' the apple trees, so he's exhausted. So, about Discord. What are we gonna do to stop him, if the drought really is him?"

"I have no idea, Applejack. I was hoping maybe you would know. You're the farmer."

"True," Applejack responded, "I do know a lot about farmin.' But I don't know a lick about stoppin' demigods from causin' a drought. "

"Well, we should get the others and let them know, at least. That way, maybe we can form an action plan," Twilight said. Applejack agreed and they ran off and gathered the others.

That afternoon in Twilight's treehouse, she and her friends were all gathered around on the main floor discussing the drought.

"We gotta solve this right quick," Applejack said, "Or my apples are gonna start wiltin' on the trees! And with the mayor puttin' us on every-other-day waterin' restrictions, there's only so much we can do to keep those trees healthy."

"You're telling me," Pinkie Pie said, "We've had flour and sugar shortages over at Sugarcube Corner. We can't even make our delicious treats anymore! That meanie Discord!"

"Well, the Pegasi cloud-moving teams have had their hands full trying to get rain down here," Rainbow Dash reported, "We've already missed two scheduled thundershowers because of this drought. The clouds are just evaporating into thin air before we can get them anywhere. But we keep trying."

"And the rivers and lakes have been really low," said Fluttershy, "The beavers have been complaining that they can't make their dams, and the fish are awfully crowded in those lakes. If it gets much lower, they might start dying off."

"And this dry air has been _horrid_ on my hair. My mane and tail are so brittle and full of static! And just LOOK at how straight my curls are now," Rarity complained. The other five ponies rolled their eyes at her.

"What? A fashion emergency is just as much of an emergency as anything _else_," she said.

Twilight said, "So we need to figure out how to stop Discord from doing this; we need to locate him so we can go use the elements of harmony on him. But remember, he can change his form. He can be anyone, or anything."

Rainbow Dash asked, "Well, normally to change the temperature you have to move the sun closer or farther from the earth. So Twilight, have you and Princess Celestia been keeping the sun at the right distance?"

"Yes, we have," said Twilight, "And as far as we can tell, Discord isn't directly interfering with the sun itself. If he had, the drought would be everywhere, but it isn't. The drought has mainly hit the farming areas of Equestria. It hasn't even affected Canterlot."

"So it's not the sun. Alright, so what else can cause heat?" Fluttershy asked.

"Dragon fire," Rarity said, "but I don't think there are any dragons around here."

"I haven't seen any," said Fluttershy, "And believe me, I keep track."

"What about the greenhouse effect? If there are greenhouse gases in the air over Equestria, that could trap the sun's rays and cause the air to heat up, which would cause a drought," Twilight said.

"Where would the gases come from, though? And how would Discord make 'em?" Applejack asked.

Twilight answered, "Magic, maybe? I don't know of a spell to make greenhouse gases, but maybe Discord does."

"I doubt it," said Rainbow Dash, "If you don't know of a spell to do something, chances are that there isn't a spell to do it."

"Oh, well I wouldn't say that…" Twilight blushed.

"Don't be modest Twi, why you're the best magician there is. If you say there ain't a spell, then there ain't a spell," Applejack said.

"I think his magic works on slightly different properties than mine, though," Twilight said, "and he can probably cast different types of spells."

"Okay, then let's say he can do anythin' he wants to. How would he make the air heat up?" Applejack asked.

"Well, I guess he could just will it to heat up directly," said Twilight.

"That doesn't leave us with much of a plan," said Rainbow Dash. "Let's say that he _couldn't_ heat it up directly, but could do anything else. Then how would he do it?"

Twilight answered, "I guess he could open up the earth's crust and expose the mantle. THAT would heat things up in a hurry. Rainbow and Rarity, remember when we went to go find Spike after he ran off to the badlands? Remember how hot it was? But there's not a giant rift in the earth that's opened up recently."

"Correction," said Rainbow Dash, "There's not one that you KNOW of. Twi, follow me." Rainbow dash galloped out the door and shot into the sky.

"Uh, I guess I'll be right back?" Twilight said as she hurried along after Rainbow Dash. The cyan pegasus was already hundreds of feet up in the air. Twilight flapped her own wings and became airborne.

"Wait up, Rainbow Dash!" Twilight called as she followed. She was not nearly as fast as her friend. Rainbow oliged and allowed Twilight to catch up.

She said, "Okay Twilight, we're going to do a little inspection. Are you in good shape? The air's about to get pretty thin up where we're going.

"Uh, I guess I'm in decent shape," Twilight replied.

"Good. Then let's go. And don't look down!"

The two raced upwards thousands more feet until they were miles in the air. Twilight's lungs were burning as she struggled to keep up.

"Almost there! Come on!" Rainbow encouraged her friend.

"Couldn't… you... have… done this… alone?" Twilight panted, coated in sweat.

"Yeah, probably. But come on, this is a great view!"

They flew up for a few more minutes until Rainbow Dash stopped.

"Okay, Twilight, remember when I said you couldn't look down? Well, you can look down now!" Twilight turned her gaze towards the earth. Her heart skipped a beat.

She could see for hundreds of miles around her. She could see all the way from the mountaintop capital of Canterlot to the north, to Ponyville beneath her, to the badlands to the south and everywhere in between.

However, there was one thing which caught her eye. Smoke was coming from Ghastly Gorge, the canyon just south of Ponyville.

"I think we've just found the rift," Rainbow Dash said.

Twilight nodded in agreement as the two descended back towards the earth.


	7. The Icy Invasion

The six ponies walked off in the direction of Ghastly Gorge. They all wore their elements around their necks, prepared for the worst.

"So, let me get this straight. There's a giant crack in the earth near Ghastly Gorge, and you think that this is causing the heat?" Rarity asked.

"Yes," Twilight answered.

"Well how do we even know that we're gonna find Discord there? For all we know he's moved on to cause chaos someplace else," Applejack asked.

"That may be true," Twilight said, "But if we can somehow restore the earth, maybe then Discord will show up to wreck it again."

The sun beat down on their backs as they walked the twenty miles from Ponyville to the gorge. Beads of sweat dripped down Twilight's face as she struggled in the taxing heat. The others fared no better, and it seemed that only the physically-fit Applejack and Rainbow Dash were unfazed by the trek.

"Maybe we should have made this trip early in the morning when it's not so hot," said Rarity.

"No, we gotta go and stop Discord right now," said Rainbow, "We can't afford any delays."

Finally, the group arrived at the precipice of the Ghastly Gorge. The pungent smell of sulfur and smoke from the depths of the earth permeated the air. As the six approached the edge of the gorge, they could see thousands of miles down into the orange, glowing depths of the earth. Waves of heat emanated from the gorge, and it was far hotter than it was on the walk to the gorge.

"I wonder what happened to the stream that used to run through here," Fluttershy mused, "I hope all the fishes are okay."

"Discord probably just thought this gorge was a convenient place to open up the earth," Twilight replied, "This is on a natural fault line, after all."

"Since when does Discord pay attention to geology? I thought he was all about 'not making sense' and chaos and all that?" Rainbow Dash asked.

Twilight responded, "He's very powerful, but he's not a god. He can't do anything he wants. I think, even with his immense power, he still would find it easier to open up a rift in a place where there was already a pre-existing one."

"So how are we gonna close this rift, anyhow?" Applejack asked.

"Twilight could use that repairing spell," Rainbow Dash said, "You know, the one that you used as Mare-Do-Well to repair the dam in Ponyville? You could just use it to repair the gorge."

"I guess that idea might work. I'll go ahead and try the spell," said Twilight. She flapped her wings and took off into the air. About a minute later, she returned.

"I've got some bad news, girls," she said, "I _would_ use the repairing spell that I used to repair the dam, but there's just one problem. There's nothing to repair the gorge with. When I repaired the dam, there were spare chunks of the dam wall around that I could use. But here, I can't find the earth that Discord moved out of the way to make this rift. Maybe it's all molten lava now, or maybe he just dumped it someplace that I can't find. But either way, the repairing spell won't work. Not unless we can find a bunch of spare rocks someplace that I can use."

"Well, shoot," said Applejack, "Now how are we gonna get this gorge fixed?"

"Oooh! Oooh! I know! We'll get some of that pink fiberglass stuff that they put in houses! The stuff that looks like cotton candy, except it isn't; I would know because I mistook it for cotton candy once and it wasn't very tasty," Pinkie Pie said, "But we'll get a whole metric BOATLOAD of it and then just pack it into the crack!"

The other five ponies rolled their eyes at her.

"No, I'm serious!" said Pinkie, "It's an insulator, right? Except instead of keeping heat in a house so it doesn't get out, we're keeping heat in the EARTH so it doesn't get out!"

"Pinkie, don't be silly," said Twilight Sparkle.

"Yes, that's a ridiculous idea! Especially since I would have just come back and taken the fiberglass out again."

The six ponies turned around to face away from the gaping gorge to see the towering form of Discord standing over them.

"Discord!" Twilight yelled, "We've got you now! Come on girls, let's use the Elements of Harmony!"

Discord held up his hand in front of Twilight's face. "Oh, don't be so naïve, Twilight. Do you honestly think that I would willingly appear before you now only for you to trap me in that stone imprisonment again? No, of course I wouldn't. Try and use the Elements, and with a mere flick of my wrist I will telekinetically fling you and your friends down into the fiery gorge. You are standing mere feet from the edge, after all."

Fluttershy glanced back behind her to see the gorge, and then looked back at Discord, and nervously took a few steps towards him.

"Oh, how precious; Fluttershy prefers me over death. But anyway, I came here to congratulate you on the wackiest idea I have ever heard in my life. Fiberglass! Why, I couldn't have come up with anything more outlandish myself."

Discord snapped his fingers and a golden trophy appeared in front of Pinkie Pie. She grinned and wrapped her hooves around it. Twilight glared at her and she let go of the trophy.

The alicorn turned to Discord and asked, "Is that the only reason you came here? To gloat?"

Discord recoiled. "Well, goodness, what manners! I was about to give you a clue as to where and how I may strike next, but since you've given me such a COLD reception, I think I may just not."

Rainbow Dash flew up into Discord's face, pointed a hoof at him and said, "Where is it, Dip-cord? Canterlot? Cloudsdale? Ponyville? Tell us!"

Discord replied, "Personal space, Rainbow Dash! And yes, one of those places. Which is the only hint I'll give you. Toodaloo!" With a flash of white light, Discord vanished.

The six ponies turned to each other.

"So. One of those cities. I don't think it will be Canterlot, since Discord said that he wouldn't attack there," said Twilight.

"How do you know he ain't lyin'?" asked Applejack.

"We don't," said Twilight, "But I think he has some sort of bizarre plan that involves leaving Canterlot alone... for now."

Twilight did not want to reveal to her friends the true reason behind Discord's decision to spare Canterlot: that he had found out about Celestia's suspicion of unicorns and had seemingly decided to leave Canterlot alone out of some bizarre sense of sympathy.

"Well, okay, Twilight, we'll trust you," said Rainbow Dash.

Twilight continued, "So, he said either Ponyville or Cloudsdale. Why don't we just split the difference? Fluttershy, Rainbow Dash and I will go to Cloudsdale since we all have wings. Applejack, Pinkie, and Rarity can stay in Ponyville. That way, we have all of our bases covered."

"But we need all six elements," said Applejack, "How in the hay are we gonna get the other three to where he is in time? Especially if he attacks Cloudsdale."

"We'll figure it out," said Twilight.

Far above the city of Cloudsdale, Twilight Sparkle, Rainbow Dash, and Fluttershy hovered in the air, keeping an eye on the city below.

"Gosh, my wings are getting tired," said Fluttershy.

"Mine too," said Twilight Sparkle, sweating despite the cold air of the upper atmosphere.

"Ah, you two need to learn to toughen up. We're supposed to be standing watch, remember? If you two go back down to rest, that leaves me all alone! What if I miss something? We need to have all directions have eyes on them at all times!" Rainbow Dash replied.

"I guess you're right, Rainbow Dash. Speaking of, what are those dark clouds doing over there way off in the distance? Was there a thunderstorm scheduled?"

"I don't think so. Even if there was, we can hardly keep clouds together in this drought long enough to carry them. They usually just evaporate before we can take them anywhere," Rainbow Dash answered as she glanced over at the dark clouds.

"Yeah, that's definitely not from the weather team," she said.

"Discord, then?" Fluttershy asked.

"Quite possibly," Rainbow Dash responded. She flew off in the direction of the clouds full-speed.

About an hour later, Rainbow Dash approached the large, dark clouds. She tapped on one with her hoof. It appeared to be real enough. It also was slowly inching towards Cloudsdale.

Suddenly, her ears perked up as she heard a high-pitched, screeching whinnying. Rainbow Dash looked into the cloud formation to see a ghostly, white, horse-shaped figure. It was about twice the size of a pony, and had a translucent body with no hind legs. It gazed at Rainbow Dash with its glaring eyes. She looked away, the light burning her retinas.

Wendigos.

"Neiiiiigh!" the creature whinnied. Rainbow Dash flew up and out of its way. Thankfully, the creature did not take much of an interest in her, and continued floating forward at a rapid pace, passing underneath Rainbow Dash.

As Rainbow looked down, she saw none other than Discord. Oddly, he was fully clothed, and wore a blue general's outfit with regalia. Rainbow Dash hid behind a cloud so that he wouldn't spot her.

"On Dasher, on Dancer! Let us march on Cloudsdale and freeze them all!" the Draconeqqus said, gleefully whipping at the icy creatures with a leather whip.

Rainbow zipped off, staying high in the air to avoid the wendigos' gazes. She had to warn her friends! She flew back towards Twilight Sparkle and Fluttershy at a sprinting pace. They were both still hovering in the air above the city when she arrived about thirty minutes later.

"Okay, I've figured out what it was: wendigos. Discord's hidden them inside of a dark thundercloud so that he can mount a surprise attack! At the rate they're going, they'll be here in just a few hours."

"Wendigos? But those haven't been seen in Equestria in thousands of years," Twilight Sparkle replied.

"Well, I know what I saw, Twilight. And I know that they are going to freeze Cloudsdale. I heard him say it while I was spying on them."

"But... don't the wendigos normally feed off of division and hatred?" said Fluttershy.

"That must be why they are responding to Discord," said Twilight, "He's found a way to harness them and control them! When they get here, they'll freeze everything in their path!"

"What do we DO?" Fluttershy asked, shaking in panic.

"We have to rally the troops, that's what," said Rainbow Dash, "We need to get geared up to fight these things!"

"But what if that just makes them angrier?" asked Fluttershy. She added, "And besides, it's not the wendigos' fault that Discord is using them as pawns. As monstrous as they are, they're still living creatures. We should only fight them as an absolute last resort."

"Then we have to take out Discord," said Twilight Sparkle, "If we take him out, then the wendigos should leave Canterlot alone. That is, if Fluttershy is willing to use her element on Discord."

"To stop the wendigos from being abused? Yes, I will," said Fluttershy.

"And what if we can't stop him?" Rainbow asked.

"Then we'll follow your idea and fight the wendigos," said Twilight, "Fluttershy and I will go and get the others, and we'll come back up here in the hot air balloon. Rainbow, you go and alert the Wonderbolts. Tell them to be on guard. When I'm in Ponyville, I'll have Spike send a letter to the Princess so she can get some of her Royal Guards up here. We'll all meet up at the weather factory in Cloudsdale."

"Sounds like a plan," said Rainbow Dash as she descended towards the Wonderbolt Headquarters near Cloudsdale.

"Come on, Fluttershy, let's go back to Ponyville and get the others!"

"My, it is SO HOT out here. Can't we stand guard inside?" Rarity asked, standing on the balcony of Twilight's treehouse. She held a pair of binoculars in her hooves, looking around on the horizon.

"Come on now, Rarity. Can't stand a bit a' heat?" Applejack teased.

"I don't mind it," said Spike, who was standing on the balcony and fanning Rarity with a paper fan.

"I know what will cool us off—" Pinkie started.

"What, a party?" Applejack and Rarity asked in unison.

"Huh? What, no. I was going to say ice cream!" Pinkie Pie grabbed a gallon jug of ice cream and several spoons.

"Where'd you get that?" Applejack asked.

"Oh, just everywhere," Pinkie responded.

"My, thank you, Pinkie," said Rarity.

"Yeah, thanks!" said Applejack and Spike.

"No prob—"

"GIRLS! GIRLS!" The three looked up to see Fluttershy and Twilight Sparkle flying towards them.

"What is it?" Applejack yelled.

"Discord... he's got... wendigos with him and... they're invading Cloudsdale..." she said, gasping for air.

"WHAT?" the three wingless ponies exclaimed.

"Yeah, that meanie! How dare he take advantage of poor, innocent creatures!" Fluttershy added.

"Well, nice to know that you are aboard at least, Fluttershy," said Rarity.

"He's crossed a red line with me," the pegasus responded.

"Alright, enough talking! Let's get a move on. Spike, alert the princess. The rest of us get in the hot air balloon, it's parked out front!" Twilight said.

Spike got out a piece of parchment and wrote to Princess Celestia. The five ponies exited the library and boarded the balloon. Twilight just hoped that they could make it to the weather factory before it was too late.

"...So now Cloudsdale is about to be invaded by wendigos led by Discord!" Rainbow Dash finished in a long-winded explanation to Spitfire, the commander of the Wonderbolts.

The fiery-orange mare removed her aviator sunglasses and looked up from her desk, where she had been busy writing all of the details of Rainbow's story down.

"Wendigos, eh? Hmm... I've been waiting to try my hoof against them in combat for years!" Spitfire said, her face lighting up with excitement.

Rainbow Dash blinked a few times, and then simply said, "What."

"Yep. Actually, I've even trained the Wonderbolts in how to use flamethrowers, should those icy demons ever try any funny business. Now it's time to hit 'em and hit 'em hard!" she said, slamming her hoof down onto the table.

Rainbow responded, "Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Wait. Let me get this straight. You went to the trouble of arming the Wonderbolts with flamethrowers just in case wendigoes showed up? Wendigos, who until about thirty minutes ago I would've told you were just as much a myth as Santa Hooves and Rudolph the Red-Nosed Pegasus?"

Spitfire chuckled. She said, "Yes, but I would've also told you three years ago that Nightmare Moon was just a myth, and that the Crystal Empire was just a myth. Given how more and more myths have been turning out to be true lately, I wanted to be on the safe side."

"Fair enough," said Rainbow Dash, "Are you also prepared to fight the Headless Horse if _he_ turns out to be real?"

Spitfire glared at Rainbow Dash for a few seconds, her brow furrowed. Rainbow blushed and glanced at the floor.

Ignoring Rainbow's sarcastic remark, Spitfire said, "So, we will assemble our flamethrower division and be prepared for battle should you be unable to stop Discord and the wendigos in time. I'll also send out one of our airborne infantry squads to follow you. Now, get out there and use the Elements on Discord, cadet!"

"Yes, ma'am!" Rainbow Dash said, flying off towards the weather factory.

Rainbow Dash arrived at the weather factory shortly before her five friends arrived in the hot air balloon. As she flew, she could hear air raid sirens blaring in the distance.

Normally the sirens were reserved for dragon attacks, but now were being put to use for a different purpose. Cloudsdale was emptying quickly as hundreds of pegasi fled the city towards the ground. As a city in the sky, Cloudsdale had been subject to its share of dragon attacks or runaway tornadoes in the past, and its residents were quite adept at protecting themselves from imminent danger.

Little did they know, however, that this was an entirely different threat. Unlike the random acts of nature such as dragon attacks, unlike accidents such as runaway tornadoes, this threat was malicious and deliberate, and therefore had potential to do far more damage. And, Twilight Sparkle suspected, had something to do with Princess Celestia's earlier statements about the unicorns. Perhaps it was simply Discord's way of "equalizing" things: he would attack a pegasi city since Celestia didn't trust unicorns. Or, maybe it tied into a larger plot also involving the drought in southern Equestria. Or, maybe it was just Discord being random and chaotic. She had no way of knowing.

"Rainbow Dash, did you alert the Wonderbolts?" the unicorn asked upon landing in front of the weather factory in her balloon.

"Yeah, Twilight. They're getting their flamethrower batallion ready. They actually have a plan for this, believe it or not," Rainbow said, still in disbelief about it. As if in response, four flamethrower wielding Wonderbolts landed beside the six ponies, ready to accompany them on their way to face Discord.

"Well duh, Dashie, why wouldn't they? I have a plan for EVERY emergency. I have eyepatches stashed all around Equestria in case of eyepatch emergencies; I have balls stashed-"

"Yes, I know, Pinkie. And I, too, am always preparing for any eventuality, Rainbow. Just not as... outlandish... as the ones that Pinkie might prepare for," Twilight said.

"Alright, so are we going to go and get Discord, or what?" Rainbow asked.

"Yep. So here's the plan. I've worked out a strategy. Rainbow Dash: you, Fluttershy, and the Wonderbolts will go and flank the cloud from the left and right. Applejack, Rarity, Pinkie, and I will stay in the balloon, which I will be protecting with a force field. Discord will likely try to go after us first and try to destroy the force field. That's where you come in. You'll sneak up behind him and use your two Elements on him from behind. Then the four of us will fire ours, and he'll be surrounded from all sides!"

"Sounds good," said Rainbow and Fluttershy.

"Yes ma'am, Princess Twilight!" said the four Wonderbolts.

"Uh, you guys don't have to call me that. Just 'Twilight' is okay," she said, blushing.

"Yes ma'am, Twilight!" they responded.

"Uh... sure."

"Okay, so let's do this!" said Rainbow Dash as she took off into the air. Fluttershy and the five Wonderbolts followed.

"Alright, let's go fight off Discord!" said Twilight, throwing a sandbag out of the balloon, causing it to rise.

Heavy gusts of winds and snow buffeted the hot air balloon as it got closer and closer to the wendigo front lines, entering into the large black cloud which concealed the icy horses' movements.

"Hang on tight; we're going into some heavy winds!" Twilight exclaimed. "Applejack, tighten down that rope over there; it's coming loose!"

Applejack grabbed the rope in her teeth and bit down, tying it into a tighter knot.

"Pinkie, how's that fire goin'?" Applejack asked.

"Uh, it's going!" Pinkie said, staring intently at the fire under the balloon which kept it aloft as she kept it fueled.

"Rarity, how's uh... how's your hair?" Pinkie asked.

"Oh, it's fine, really. A bit tousled about by the wind, but otherwise okay. Are you three sure that there's nothing I can help with?"

"Nope, just stand there lookin' pretty," Applejack responded.

"Uh, actually, you can help me with the force field if you want to. Just add your magic to it to make it stronger," said Twilight. Rarity powered up her horn and did as Twilight said.

"Alright, we're coming up to the first few wendigoes! Hold on tight, everypony. This force field should hold, but it'll be bumpy!" Twilight said.

The four ponies braced for impact as a particularly large wendigo brushed the side of the force field. The balloon shook, but remained intact.

"Well that wasn't so bad-" Rarity started as five more wendigos slammed headfirst into the force field. The balloon rocked from side to side as Twilight struggled to maintain the force field against the large beasts.

"Ah, I'm gettin' seasick!" said Applejack, running over to the other side of the basket to tighten down another rope.

"We're almost there, I think!" said Twilight Sparkle.

"Ah yes, the Elements of Harmony!" They heard a devilish voice boom out across the sky. As they looked in front of them, they saw Discord riding a wendigo. He was approaching the force field. The rest of his wendigo army stopped in their tracks.

"Do you honestly think that this puny little force field can stop me?" he asked. He banged on the force field with his lion paw and a crack appeared in it. Twilight strained with her magic to repair it, her horn glowing brightly. Rarity came to her aid, attempting to reinforce the crack with her own magic. However, more cracks appeared as Discord continued to bang on the magical shield.

"I see him, he's right there! He's falling for the trap!" said Rainbow Dash to the two Wonderbolts who had accompanied her to the right side of the cloud. Fluttershy was on the left side, accompanied by the two other Wonderbolts.

"Shall we move in?"

"Affirmative," Rainbow Dash said, "Just make sure I can make it through these wendigos! Use your flamethrowers only as a last resort; don't give away our position unless you have to. We want to catch him by surprise."

"Yes ma'am," the two infantrystallions said. One of them radioed his counterpart on the other side of the cloud bank to give the go-ahead.

"All set on this end. Is Fluttershy set?... copy. Roger. We're all clear."

"Let's do this!" Rainbow commanded. She and her two guards charged into the cloud banks, weaving their way through the wendigoes as they began closing in on Discord.

Discord pounded his lion paw repeatedly against the force field. Cracks spread across the force field in spider-web patterns as it lost its structural integrity. Soon, the four ponies inside could barely see out of it, it was so cracked.

Discord brought up his fist once more, but paused for a moment. He looked around himself, and then back at the four ponies in the balloon.

"Wait... why are there only four of you... aha! You're trying to flank me! I know military strategy too, you know," he said, pointing at his military uniform.

"Well, if it's a war you want, then it's a war you'll get! WENDIGOES! Launch your icy breath to the left and right! The two pegasi who wield the other Elements are hiding there!"

A great cacophony of whinnying and neighing sounded as the wendigos obeyed, breathing icicles out at either side of the thundercloud.

"AAAH!" a scream pierced the air as Rainbow Dash fell through the air, her ankle pierced by an icicle.

"Rainbow Dash!" one of her two Wonderbolt companions yelled out, and flew down to catch her. The other Wonderbolt fired back with his flamethrower.

"EEEEEEE!" one of the wendigos screeched as his icy, ethereal body disintegrated. The Wonderbolt retreated back with Rainbow Dash and the other batallion member.

"The rest of you, attack these four!" Discord called out to the wendigoes on the front line. They pounded their hooves on the force field as it finally gave way and shattered into a thousand pieces.

After the force field disintegrated, the wendigoes fired icicles at the balloon, poking hole after hole in it. After about ten seconds, the balloon collapsed, and the basket started to fall.

Thinking quickly, Twilight Sparkle grabbed Applejack and held her aloft. She could not grab any of the others, as she had to dodge the icicles.

"AAAH!" Pinkie yelled as she fell down. However, she was caught by a Wonderbolt.

Rarity levitated herself to delay her inevitable fall as she waited in vain for a Wonderbolt to come along. A blue glow enveloped her as she hovered in midair for about ten seconds. However, an icicle hit her, breaking her concentration, and she fell.

"AAAH!" Rarity yelled as she accelerated, now going too fast to stop her fall.

"Gotcha!" Rarity looked down to see Fluttershy, who had caught her.

"Why thank you, Fluttershy! You saved my life!"

"No problem. Let's find the others."

Fluttershy and Rarity followed the Wonderbolt back towards Cloudsdale. They were soon met by Applejack and Twilight. Another Wonderbolt arrived, carrying Rainbow Dash.

"Oh good, everypony's okay!" said Applejack as she and Twilight landed.

"Yep! Thanks for saving me, Mister Wonderbolt." said Pinkie.

"Rarity, I didn't know you could self-levitate. That sort of magic is somewhat difficult," Twilight observed.

"Well, with how many times I've almost plummeted to my death before, I figured that I should at least learn how to delay my falls long enough for somepony with proper flight to come along and save me, as Fluttershy here did. As much of a boor as Prince Blueblood is, his book does have some helpful magic training tips in it."

Rarity was of course referring to her bad habit of falling from great heights, as happened to her on three different times before this: once during the Best Young Flyers Competition, once when Spike had become a rampaging adult dragon, and once during Rainbow Dash's Wonderbolt training.

"Oh, and thank you for saving me, Fluttershy."

"You're welcome. Sorry I couldn't get there quicker," said Fluttershy.

"Uh, gang? I know that we're all glad to still be alive, but look over there," Rainbow Dash said, pointing off towards the horizon.

The other ponies all glanced towards where Rainbow pointed her hoof. They could see the dark cloud and the wendigos within rapidly approaching Cloudsdale. At the rate that they were traveling, the icy spirits would be in Cloudsdale in mere minutes.


	8. The Wendigo Wars

The six element holders gazed in terror at the army of icy beasts who closed in on the city of Cloudsdale.

"What are we gonna do? Our balloon's gone, and we can't fight Discord without it!" Applejack said.

"We're DOOMED!" Rarity exclaimed, wiping her hoof across her forehead in a dramatic fashion.

"Maybe, but maybe not," replied Twilight Sparkle, "Three of us have wings. We could carry the three wingless ponies towards Discord, and we can try to sneak up on him again."

"I doubt that will work again," said Fluttershy, "He's going to be on guard against that sort of thing now. He already knows that plan."

"Yes, but we have one thing on our side now that we didn't then," Rainbow Dash said, motioning behind herself, "The entire Wonderbolt fleet and Celestia's own pegasi Royal Guards!"

As if on cue, hundreds of white pegasi in shining gold armor descended onto the clouds in front of the weather factory. Some carried flamethrowers, some carried semi-automatic bolt-action rifles, and some carried heavy artillery in chariots behind themselves.

"Wow, I never knew that you guys were so well-armed," said Twilight Sparkle.

"Of course, your highness. Though Equestria is peaceful, we must be prepared for war, as well. Now is one of those times," the head Royal Guard Pegasus responded.

"We are prepared as well," said Spitfire, flying towards the Royal Guard and the mane six with a battalion of three dozen Wonderbolts, all of whom wielded flamethrowers, including Spitfire.

"You're going into combat, too?" Rainbow asked.

"I'll be behind the front lines commanding, obviously, but I have this with me just in case. My name isn't Spitfire for nothing!"

"Princess Twilight, awaiting your orders," the Royal Guard commander said.

"Wait, ME? Order YOU?" Twilight Sparkle asked.

"Of course. We are the Royal Guard, and we report directly to the princesses. As you are a princess, we take our marching orders from you."

"Um… er…" Twilight stammered. She had read books on military strategy after becoming a princess, but never expected to actually put what she read into real-world practice. Equestria, after all, was a normally-peaceful nation.

Twilight said, "Okay… let's see here. Royal Guards, since you are slower than the Wonderbolts, you will be the front lines: the infantry. You will engage the enemy directly. Your job will be to protect Cloudsdale and hold the line against the wendigos. Don't let them enter the city, and only retreat as a last resort.

"The Wonderbolts will be the cavalry, attacking the wendigos from above, below, and behind, flanking them and launching hit-and-run style attacks. The wendigos are slower than pegasi, so the Wonderbolts have speed as an advantage. The Wonderbolts should focus on quick hit-and-run attacks. Fly in, take a few out, and fly back before they can hit you back with their icy breath."

"As a military commander myself, I say that is a sound strategy," said Spitfire.

"What about you and your friends, your highness? How will you go about defeating Discord with the Elements?" the Royal Guard Commander asked.

"Hmm…" said Twilight, "Wonderbolts. Do you have any spare uniforms?"

Air raid sirens blared as the last remaining residents who had yet to evacuate Cloudsdale gathered their things and left. The Royal Guard hovered in the air above the city, forming a line. Legionnaires constructed a barrier in front of the city with tightly-packed clouds. Though walls of clouds could be easily penetrated, tightly-packed clouds were mildly effective as barriers in a pinch.

The wendigos reached the newly-constructed cloud wall and stopped. A rumbling laugh could be heard, and then Discord's voice bellowed out, "Oh, CLOUD barriers? How precious, the widdle pegasi want to play war! Will you construct a pillow fort as well? Wendigos, show these featherbrains that this is no slumber party!"

The icy spirits responded and let loose their icy breath towards the cloud barrier. They fired icicles towards the clouds. Surprisingly, many of the icicles simply bounced back upon hitting the clouds, but several of them

"Royal Guards, attack!" the commander bellowed. Dozens of white-coated stallions soared towards the wendigos. The ten or so who had flamethrowers ignited streams of flame, which travelled for fifteen feet before meeting their marks.

"EEEEE!" A half dozen wendigos screeched as their bodies burst into flames. Their brethren advanced forward to take their place, and shot icicles forward at the Royal Guards.

"AAAH!" Three of the guards fell, icicles piercing their wings and bodies. Medic ponies soared down, trying to catch them before they hit the ground below.

Volley after volley of wendigos pummeled the cloud wall until it broke, after about five minutes. Now, the flamethrower Royal Guards were the only thing standing in between Cloudsdale and the wendigos.

The Wonderbolts flanked the advancing forces from above, below, and either side. They did as Twilight instructed, and conducted quick hit-and-run attacks. They did not lose as many soldiers as the Royal Guard, due to their speed in evading the icicles, but did still suffer casualties.

Despite their best efforts, a few of the wendigos broke through the pegasi front lines. They evaded the flamethrower lines by zigzagging in-between the pegasi. Once they were in the city, they breathed their frozen breath at the buildings and clouds holding them up. A few of the buildings collased.

"Alright, you guys all dressed up?" Twilight asked.

"Mm-hm," her five friends responded.

All six ponies were wearing Wonderbolt costumes. Rarity, Pinkie, and Applejack wore costumes with fake cardboard wings on the back. The wings were covered in red stains, as if they had been bloodied. Rarity and Twilight's horns were concealed by their manes. Each pony wore her amulet under her uniform. Twilight's tiara was concealed by her mane, which Rarity had helped her style to cover it.

"Alright, let's review the plan," said Twilight, "We're going to sneak up behind the Wendigos, as if we had just launched a surprise attack. We won't actually attack, but in the chaos of the battle, it will be hard to tell that we didn't. You three are going to pretend to have been hit in the wings by icicles. That way, it won't look suspicious that we're carrying you.

"Then, will fly around the perimeter until we find Discord. Finally, we'll surround him and use the Elements on him. I'll get him from behind. Rainbow, you and Fluttershy sneak up on him from the sides.

"But what if we get attacked while we're pretending to be wounded?" said Fluttershy.

"I don't think that the Wendigos will attack us if they don't perceive us as a threat.

One of the most effective military tactics is to seriously wound your opponent rather than kill her. It takes three or more doctors and nurses to tend to a badly-wounded pony, and the more ponies that they can tie up with medical care, the fewer they have to face on the battlefield. It's part of attrition tactics. If you can kill a pony in war, that's good, but if you can wound her bad _enough_ to require extensive medical care, and then she later dies_anyway_, that's even better."

"Wow, Twilight, you know your military tactics almost as well as I do," Rainbow Dash gave a sort-of compliment.

"Thanks," Twilight said, "Now let's move out!"

Meanwhile, the invading wendigo forces were crushing the city of Cloudsdale. They blew gusts of furious winds at the buildings, and many of them broke apart. Furious snow flurries blew through the cities, and roofs collapsed from the sheer weight of the snow. If the mane six did not hurry and defeat Discord soon, there would be no city left to defend.

"Fall back, fall back!" Spitfire yelled. Her remaining two dozen or so Wonderbolts retreated and regrouped near the weather factory.

"Okay, status report," she commanded.

"We've had over a dozen fatalities," said one of the Wonderbolt senior officers, "And many more are critically wounded. In total, we have half of our original forces left. The Royal Guard is reporting similar casualty figures. We're struggling to repel the wendigos that have entered the city, as they have been conducting guerilla-style warfare. They're taking cover behind buildings, making it difficult to use our flamethrowers on them without burning the buildings, as well."

Spitfire sighed and shook her head. "Please tell me that you have some good news," she said.

"We do. The good news is that we have also dealt heavy damage to the wendigos. Earlier, our scouts estimated their numbers at several thousand. Now, we estimate their numbers at only a few hundred. Though a dozen or so of them have breached the Royal Guard line, the line is still holding fairly well and most of the wendigo forces are still outside the city."

Spitfire responded, "Well, if we can keep those ratios up, we will kill them all before they kill us all," said Spitfire, "Conduct house-to-house sweeps of all of Cloudsdale, and kill any and all wendigos you see on sight, as soon as you see them. Deploy snipers onto the rooftops. Stay out of the way of their icicles, but do not retreat. Clear, capture and hold each section of the city, one section at a time. Meanwhile, I'll radio the Royal Guard commander. No more messing around. It's time to break out the heavy weaponry on the battlefield."

The mane six circled around a full two miles outside of the outermost edge of the invading wendigo army. They did this to ensure that neither the wendigos nor Discord would see them. After about twenty minutes, they were a mile behind and several hundred feet above the rear of the wendigo army.

"Well, it looks like there's a lot less of them now," said Fluttershy.

"Good, that means it will be easier to find Discord and get to him," said Rainbow.

"Okay, girls," said Twilight, "You know the drill. Head back towards Cloudsdale as if you're transporting wounded ponies, and stay above the wendigo army. When you see Discord, descend to near his location. I'll fire off a beacon from my horn once I see that all of us are in place. When you see the beacon, it means it's time to fire all of our elements at him!"

"Yes ma'am!" the five ponies responded.

Rainbow Dash carried Applejack on the right side of the wendigo army. The wendigos were mostly preoccupied with fighting off the Royal Guard infantry.

"I wonder where the rest of the Wonderbolts are," said Rainbow Dash, "I haven't seen any since we came back over here."

Applejack, who Rainbow Dash was carrying in her hooves, responded. "Eh, who knows; they might be regroupin,' maybe."

"Sounds plausible enough." Rainbow whispered, "Oh, and try to act wounded, would you? We don't want to blow our cover."

"Act wounded? What in tarnation do you mean? I've got a pair of fake, bloody orange wings on the back of mah costume. What else do you want?"

"I don't know, Applejack, like keep your head down. Maybe moan a bit, like you're in pain."

Applejack let her head fall down and yelled, "Aaaah! The pain, the pain! Oh, the ponamity!"

Rainbow Dash glared at Applejack and whispered, "Not like that, Applejack! Do you want Discord to hear us?"

"Hey, speakin' of, I see him right over there," said Applejack, pointing with her hoof towards the center of the wendigo army. Sure enough, the Draconequss stood, shouting out orders to his troops. He did not seem to notice the two ponies, as he was facing towards Cloudsdale.

"Good. Now we just need to wait for the—"

As if on cue, the two ponies saw a bright purple beam shoot of into the sky above and behind Discord. Thankfully, the beam was silent, and Discord did not turn to face them.

"Alright, let's go!" Rainbow said, zipping off towards Discord as fast as she could considering that she was carrying Applejack, a heavy-set earth pony.

"I see the others," Rainbow whispered, "Three, two, one… FIRE!"

Applejack and Rainbow Dash fired their elements towards Discord, and they saw their other friends do the same thing.

"What the—" Discord said as he turned behind himself. However, he was too late, and his body began turning to stone.

"AAAH!" he yelled as the transformation took him, starting in his feet, moving to his hands, and then all the way up to his head.

Twilight grabbed the stone statue which was once Discord with her telekinesis, so that it wouldn't fall to the earth.

"Good job, girls! We did it! Now the wendigos will leave us alone, and we can start to rebuild in peace!"

"Yep. Let's go back to the others and tell them the good—"

A loud, cacophonous boom sounded as orange flashes enveloped the wendigos.

"EEEEE!" they shrieked as their bodies exploded into chunks and bits. More and more explosions and bangs sounded as hundreds of the icy horses faced their deaths.

"What the…" Twilight said, looking up to see dozens of Royal Guard members flying and dropping explosives onto the wendigos.

"It's the artillery!" said Rainbow Dash, "I was wondering when they were going to bust it out."

"Yes, though this is unnecessary; we just defeated Discord!" Fluttershy exclaimed.

"Yeah, shouldn't the wendies leave us alone now that Discord's imprisoned?" Pinkie asked.

"Well, they should, but those pegasi might not have gotten the message," said Twilight, "Let's go back to Cloudsdale and tell everypony that we won. But, we might want to fly around again. I wouldn't want to be here when these bombs and mortar shells explode."

The six ponies flew back to Cloudsdale. On their way, they didn't see any more wendigos.

"Talk about thoroughness," Fluttershy scoffed, "You'd think the pegasi would at least take prisoners!"

"That's not really possible with beasts who don't speak any language that we understand," said Rainbow Dash, "But point taken about how much of a victory this was. Hah, I wouldn't be surprised if we've driven them extinct!"

Twilight said, "I know that you're only joking, but you very well may be correct. Most of the old legends and tales about wendigos seem to indicate that they are only as numerous as dragons. That would mean that there were only a few thousand of them before this war. Given that there were a few thousand of them here, I'd say that Discord found a way to bring every wendigo in the world here. Probably because he's Discord, and they're attracted to hatred and division. Since he _causes_ hatred and division, it was a match made in Cloudsdale."

"If the wendigos are extinct then it serves those 'em right, though," said Applejack, "Tryin' to destroy Cloudsdale? There _shouldn't_ be any of 'em left!"

"Yeah, but you have to admit that it's sad when a species goes extinct, even ones as destructive as the wendigos," said Fluttershy, "Though I guess it was unavoidable in a way."

"Eh, who cares? It's not like they served a purpose or anything," Pinkie joked.

"Somepony wasn't paying attention during the Hearths' Warming Eve pageant," said Rarity, "If you recall, it was the destructive blizzards caused by the wendigos which led the three pony races to stop bickering amongst themselves and work together. I suppose that that was one good thing that came of them and their blizzards."

"True," said Pinkie, chuckling, "But hey, it's not like the three races are ever going to separate into their own countries again or anything! I mean, what sort of crazy idea is that?"

Everypony chuckled. Everypony, that is, except for Twilight. The alicorn princess simply thought back to the conversation she had had several weeks ago with Celestia regarding her secret laws against unicorns.

"Yep. The unicorns, pegasi, and earth ponies are tighter than the bolts on a railroad. Nothin' could ever drive us apart!" Applejack said.

"Quite true," Rarity added.

"Exactly!" said Rainbow Dash.

"Indeed," said Fluttershy.

"Mm-hm." Twilight muttered, simply gazing off into space.

About ten minutes later, they arrived at the City of Cloudsdale. Though no wendigos remained, the extensive damage they caused remained. Roofs were collapsed from the weight of icicles, and many buildings were blown over by wind.

"Oh my gosh, it looks like a warzone!" said Rainbow Dash.

"Well yeah, that's because it is," Pinkie joked.

"Goodness, all of our old friends from flight school! I hope that their homes are okay," Fluttershy said, looking at Rainbow Dash.

They headed towards the weather factory. The building had sustained some serious damage, as part of the cloud foundation upon which it sat had been destroyed by wendigos.

"Ah, is that a statue of Discord that I see you carrying, Twilight? Good job, girls!" said Spitfire, flying over to greet them.

"Yes, we defeated him," said Twilight, "How did you handle the Wendigos?"

"Well, it was a grueling fight. We lost thirty Wonderbolts and over two hundred Royal Guards. Even more are in critical condition. But we won. We wiped out every last wendigo in Discord's entire army."

So the mane six's suspicions had been correct.

"Wow, congratulations, I guess," said Rainbow.

"Yeah," said Spitfire, "The royal guard commander and I didn't make the decision to drop bombs on them lightly. I know I talked about wanting to take on the wendigos earlier, but bombing is something I didn't want to do; I just wanted to defeat them. But we had no choice. They attacked the city, and we did what we had to do to save the city. And you can see how much damage they did, even then."

"I understand," said Twilight, "It looks like Cloudsdale has a lot of rebuilding to do."

"Yep," said Spitfire, "We don't yet know, but we figure that thousands of pegasi are now homeless. Maybe even tens of thousands. We won't know until they assess the damage."

"Well, let's hope that it isn't too terrible," said Rainbow.

Two of the Royal Guards carted off the statue of Discord to Princess Celestia's palace. The six ponies, exhausted from the day, headed back to Ponyville.

"Well, that was sure somethin' else," said Applejack.

"Mm-hm," the other five ponies said.

"You all did great. It's just too bad that Cloudsdale was so devastated, and it's too bad that all the wendigos had to die," said Twilight.

"That's war for you," Rainbow replied. The other six nodded their heads.

Over the next week, Equestria began the process of rebuilding. Thousands of earth ponies joined the earth-moving team to fill in the volcanic rift which Discord had created in the Ghastly Gorge. The estimates were that it would take months. Meanwhile, the heat from the rift continued, leading to dry, desert-like conditions across southern Equestria. Compounding the problem, wildfires broke out during the heat, destroying thousands of homes. That added together with the homes destroyed in the Wendigo Wars meant that nearly 10% of the population of Equestria was now homeless.

Though the crack in the earth was filled by the following year, the drought had been around long enough to cause most of the crops in Southern Equestria to wither and die, and it was too hot for them to be re-planted, because they'd just wilt again. Thus, a famine spread across the nation. Food prices soared. Many ponies had to choose between spending money to rebuilding their homes or spending it to buy food.

Discontent and unhappiness spread in the wake of this disaster. Ponies demanded that their old standards of living be restored. They set their eyes on the one place in Equestria which had been spared the devastation of Discord: the capital city of Canterlot.


	9. We Are Equestria

**Canterlot, July 2014**

The city of Canterlot shone brightly as the morning sun ascended over the mountaintop and glinted off of the pearly white domes of Princess Celestia's palace. This spectacular display, which could be seen on clear, bright days when the sun was at just the right place in the sky, made the mountain city of Canterlot shine out like a lighthouse beacon, its rays visible across all of Equestria.

Today was just such a day, and the radiant capitol domes were seen all across the countryside below. However, Canterlot also stood that day as another sort of beacon for a different reason: Canterlot was one of the only cities unaffected by Discord's recent chaotic rampage. True to his promise to Twilight Sparkle and Princess Celestia, he had spared it.

However, Canterlot had not merely been spared, it had been _booming_. The capital, normally an affluent city even when the rest of Equestria was as prosperous and whole as normal, had taken the chance to become even wealthier than before. Through the expansion of agriculture, the city had managed to fill the production gaps caused by the drought, since Canterlot's weather was unaffected.

Not all ponies believed that this was appropriate. One pony, a turquoise pegasus mare named Lightning Dust from Cloudsdale, believed that it was unfair that Canterlot not have to bear any of the terrible burden borne by the other cities in Equestria. Today, she and a few friends and activists decided to hold a demonstration demanding that Princess Celestia take needed action to bring relief to the crisis-stricken areas of Equestria.

Lightning Dust hovered above a small crowd which had gathered in front of the city of Canterlot's drawbridge and front city walls. They were an eclectic bunch: many pegasi from Cloudsdale, many earth ponies from farming towns, and the occasional unicorn from Ponyville or other small towns. About a hundred of them were gathered. Lightning Dust hovered in the air above the crowd, her golden mane mane blowing slightly in the breeze. She and took a megaphone in her hooves.

She spoke, "I assume that you have all gathered here after seeing my flyers posted on walls in the cities and towns around Equestria. My name is Lightning Dust. I used to live in Cloudsdale until the Wendigos destroyed my home. The devastation was horrible, but thankfully I had evacuated. That was three months ago. I have yet to receive any of the Princess's aid money which she sent out, but even if I had received it, I have heard from other ponies that this money is barely enough to live on. Besides, I am still homeless. I've burnt through my savings just to pay rent on an apartment and to buy food, the prices of which have more than tripled. It's been three months, and my situation has yet to improve. The quality of life should be changing. Who's with me?"

The crowd cheered in agreement. One pony, a buff, light-brown coated earth stallion with a chocolate mane and three horseshoes as his cutie mark, jumped in the air and raised his hoof.

"Let us hear your story as well!" Lightning shouted, tossing the stallion her megaphone.

"Name's Caramel," said the stallion, "I was not as unfortunate as Lightning Dust here; my house is still standing. However, I am a wheat farmer, and the drought destroyed my wheat crop. Since they've yet to close the rift, I can't plant another crop; the heat will get to it. We may have to sell the farm, since we can't afford to pay the bills any longer. We have been hurting, too."

"Thank you, Caramel. Now, you may all wonder why I have gathered you all here in Canterlot. The reason is two-fold. One, this is one of the few cities in Equestria left entirely unaffected by Discord's recent chaotic rampage. If we can show the residents of this town who we are and how we are suffering, then they will have no choice but to help us. Two, this is the capital of Equestria, and we must convince Princess Celestia and the legislature to give us more relief.

"Here is the plan. We are going to take a walk down Founders Street to visit the stock market. Then, we will turn on Marketplace Avenue to visit the town bazaar, and then finally onto Capital Street where we'll march on the royal palace and demand that Princess Celestia hear our pleas for help!"

The crowd cheered. A grin spread across Lightning Dust's face as she shouted into the megaphone, "WE ARE EQUESTRIA!"

"WE ARE EQUESTRIA!" the crowd yelled back. A thunderous clip-clopping of hooves sounded as they crossed the wooden drawbridge and entered the capital city.

The Flim Flam brothers had taken advantage of the drought crisis to expand their market for farm equipment, as they elaborated on in a newspaper interview in the Manehattan Times. They had a brilliant idea to avert the coming food shortage: grow crops in the hills and valleys surrounding Canterlot, which were not affected by the drought. The areas were high enough in elevation to still be cool enough for rainfall, but not too high to prevent farming. Though most ponies in Canterlot were business-minded, Flim and Flam still sold them on farming due to the high price which food fetched during the famine. To the new farmers buying these machines, farming was another investment opportunity.

The plan worked very well, and soon Canterlot was a booming farming town. Even though Canterlot was populated with mostly unicorns, the plan was still successful for two reasons. For one, these farming machines enabled one pony to do the work that it would normally take hundreds of ponies to do. Even a physically-fit stallion like Big Macintosh could only plow a few acres in a day, while the mechanized tractor could plow hundreds of acres a day. The second reason was that these machines could be operated by a unicorn. Some unicorns were able to farm, as long as the unicorn had at least one earth pony parent, since the genetic trait enabling "earth pony magic" allowing farming would be passed on. Though earth pony magic was still required to farm even with a machine, it could thus be used by a unicorn.

On this day, the Flim Flam brothers were continuing their successful marketing campaign by doing one of their musical demonstrations for their new machines. They stood at a stall on Marketplace Street. True to its name, this street was lined with dozens of market stalls with vendors selling all sorts of goods. Hundreds of ponies milled about and browsed the selection at the stalls.

The Flim and Flam brothers had a stall too, with many paper catalogues and forms on the table. Behind the stall stood two large wheeled machines. Atop the stall was a banner which read, "Do you own grassland or other significant property holdings in the metro Canterlot area? Come attend our seminar!"

The first, a four-wheeled machine, had a corkscrew-like contraption attached to its rear. The second had a cylindrical, open pod on the front which was covered in a half-dozen long, slender blades. It had an open bin on the back, on top of which rested a metal chute. Both of the machines were powered by steam engines in front of the cabs, which were fed by coal the operator shoveled in. A group of fifty or so ponies stood in-front of the machines, as mechanized farm equipment was a peculiar oddity.

Flim asked the crowd, "So, you all have arable land, yes?" The crowd responded with nods and yeses.

"This isn't one of those timeshare things, is it?" asked a skeptical unicorn mare.

"No, of course not," Flam responded.

Flim continued, "And as I am sure that you are all painfully aware, there is a drought and food prices have gone up?" Yet more acknowledgements.

"Then do we have an investment opportunity for you!" Flim and Flam then sang a song about their machines. Flam began with the opening verses.

"_When Discord went to Ponyville, he opened a crevasse._

_The heat it caused killed all the crops and all the trees and grass._

_But Canterlot was spared; now we've got a job to do._

_Equestria needs Canterlot to grow their vital food!"_

One of the ponies in the crowd asked, "But I'm not a farmer. I'm not strong enough to pull a plow and work out in the heat all day. I have land, but I also have another job. How and why would I grow food?"

As if prepared for this question, Flim responded,

"_You may ask how or why, those questions I'll address._

_The 'why' is simply just because it makes good business sense!_

_Food has all gone up in price, there's profit in things green._

_And 'how' to grow this food is with the help of our machines!_

_For years ponies have labored to grow their corn and wheat._

_They've worked in packs, they've broke their backs, they've sweated in the heat._

_But with technology it needn't all be done by hoof,_

_I'm Flim, he's Flam, we've got a plan, so come and take a look!_

Flam jumped on top of the first machine, the tractor. He sang,

"_This tractor is steam powered, it just takes a load of coal_

_Shovel it in and it begins, and then it starts to pull_

_The plow will loosen up the soil quicker than you know_

_It's an easy way and it won't take days to have a whole field hoed!"_

Flam demonstrated the machine by adding a load of coal to the furnace and turning it on. He drove it down the market street, and the onlookers watched him.

"What about getting the crops out of the ground? What about grains?" another pony asked. Flim jumped onto the combine harvester and sang,

"_This harvester is combine, which means it's two in one_

_It saves you time and effort in getting harvests done_

_It reaps the wheat with blades that the motor quickly spins_

_Then threshes up the chaff and dumps the grain into a bin!_

Flim dumped a bushel of wheat into the harvester to demonstrate. The harvester shot out threshed grain. The ponies looked on in excitement as both brothers joined in for the ending chorus of the song.

"_Now that you've seen our new machines, I think you all will know_

_Automation is sensation meaning crops and profits grow._

_You can farm entire fields and grow food all by yourself_

_Then take advantage of the record prices when you sell!"_

Flam yelled out, "Yes, installment payment plans ARE available, and your first payment won't be due until after your first harvest!"

The crowd burst into applause, and catalogues flew off of the table. Orders poured in. Flim and Flam were inundated as they struggled to write down orders for machines.

"Yes, I'd like to place an order for one of each of these machines. I have a plot of land near town and I'd love to try my hoof at farming if it's that profitable and easy!" said a beige earth pony who was first in line.

Flim responded, "And indeed it is, good sir! Now, let's talk about payment—"

"WE ARE EQUESTRIA!"

Flim and the customer paused and glanced down Marketplace Street to where a large crowd had gathered. Rather than one or two hundred, it was now five hundred strong, as other ponies from both Canterlot and other cities had arrived to join the protest.

The crowd continued their march down Marketplace Street until they reached Flim and Flam's stall.

Lightning Dust shouted into the megaphone at the confused shoppers, "So, you are the food growers who charge us so much for our bread and apples! You should be ashamed!"

Nopony said anything for a minute. Finally, one of the customers, a unicorn, spoke, "I can't speak for any of these ponies, but I am not a farmer… yet. I may well become one, as I own some land on the outskirts of town and happen to have had an earth pony father. I believe farming is a good investment opportunity with food prices as high as they are."

"So you plan on conducting price gouging!" Lightning Dust shouted. The crowd booed at this.

"Price gouging? Shouldn't I charge whatever ponies will pay? What would you prefer that I charge?"

"Charge what the food prices were before Discord!" Caramel shouted.

"If that was all I could charge, then I wouldn't do it. I have another full-time job, at a factory. Farming would only be profitable to me if I can make more than my factory job. If you will only pay pre-Discord prices, than I shall have to let my land go unused."

"Not when there are ponies starving!" yelled Lightning Dust.

"But what would you have me do? I could lease my land to somepony else, but they would just charge whatever ponies would pay them: the market price. Otherwise, it wouldn't be worth it to them, either."

"Look, you're just living in an ivory tower. You don't understand the plight of the common ponies who don't live in Canterlot. You need to farm on your land and quit your factory job. For the sake of us and feeding our families!"

"I have a family too, you know," the unicorn scoffed.

"IVORY TOWER! IVORY TOWER!" the crowd angrily chanted.

"Now, now, listen up here," Flam said, raising a hoof into the air, "If it weren't for our farming machines, Equestria would be in even worse of a food crisis than it is now!"

"Yes," said Flim, "You all should be thanking us for our innovations which enabled this to be possible, not criticizing us!"

"IVORY TOWER! IVORY TOWER!" the crowd continued their chant. Two burly earth stallions jumped over the market stall, crowbars in their mouths, and swung at the engines of the machines. They made several dents in the engines, and they started to smoke.

A third pony, a unicorn, charged at Flam with his horn. Thankfully, his brother Flim pushed him out of the way, and the unicorn simply slammed into the side of the stall.

"Come on Flim, let's get out of here!" Flam shouted.

"What of our machines?" Flim asked.

"Your money or your life, Flim!" Flam exclaimed. Flam frowned and charged up his horn, teleporting off. Flim followed thereafter.

"COWARDS!" Lightning Dust yelled.

"Come back here and face justice for swindling the common pony with your predatory pricing!" another pony shouted.

"WE ARE EQUESTRIA! WE ARE EQUESTRIA!" the crowd chanted. After they had trashed the machines and the market stall selling them, they continued their march on towards the palace.


	10. The Ivory Tower Tax

Princess Celestia sat in her bed reading a book. She coughed as she levitated a tissue up to her mouth. She sighed and tried to focus on her reading. Her health had been rapidly deteriorating in the last few months, and she was amazed that she was still alive. Thankfully, Princess Luna and Princess Twilight Sparkle had been doing a remarkable job raising the sun and moon without her.

At this point, Princess Celestia was mostly a figurehead. She still attended major social events and she still signed bills into law, but she did not do much more than that. Most of the day-to-day administration was handled by Princess Luna, while protecting Equestria fell to Twilight Sparkle and the Elements of Harmony. Thankfully for Celestia, Twilight Sparkle had proven herself a capable military leader.

She coughed again, but this time could not move a tissue towards her mouth in time. Rather, small droplets of blood sprayed across her bedsheets.

A cold shiver overcame Princess Celestia as she coughed once more. She had coughed up blood before, but never that much. Would this evening be the night she would finally pass on? She shuddered at the thought. Perhaps she could take a quick stroll out on the balcony and get some fresh air. Or, she could just try and get some sleep. She hadn't been sleeping very well, but perhaps she could try again.

"PRINCESS! PRINCESS!"

The Princess' head jolted up. Was she hearing voices? During the past few days when she had a temperature of above 105 degrees Fahrenheit, she had suffered from mild hallucinations. Was this one of them?

She closed her eyes for five seconds and then opened them again. Perhaps some air would help. She walked out of the back door of her bedroom towards the balcony of her palace. She glanced down into her garden and then took a step back. Perhaps it wasn't a hallucination.

Below her, she saw a crowd which now numbered in the thousands. The protest had now gone on for several hours and had attracted ponies from all across Equestria. The crowd cheered upon seeing her emerge.

"PRINCESS! PRINCESS! PRINCESS!" they chanted. Celestia puzzled. Today was not any sort of Royalty Appreciation Day or anything. Perhaps, then, it was a hallucination after all. Only one way to find out.

"Hello!" she said as loud as she could muster given her cough. They did not quiet, so evidently they couldn't hear her. Her horn lit up as she used her magic to cast a voice-amplification spell.

"My royal, er, excuse me, my loyal subjects, how may I—" her voice was cut off by a coughing fit, "How may I be of assistance?" the last word trailed off as her weakened magic could not sustain her voice any longer.

Lightning Dust flew up to Princess Celestia's balcony, landed, and gave a quick bow.

"Thank you for giving us an audience, Princess. I am Lightning Dust, and I speak for the crowd here. We are Equestria."

"You are Equestria? But there's only a few thousand, whereas there are millions in the nation of Equestrians," Princess Celestia puzzled, stumbling over her words. She knew she was feeling woozy and disoriented, but she wasn't _that_ disoriented.

"It's a catchphrase. We wish to speak to you regarding the ivory towers that you have in your city. 'We Are Equestria' is simply our movement's rallying cry," Lightning Dust said.

"Uh… okay?" the Princess said with a puzzled look on her face.

_Ivory towers? Are ponies upset about the sun glinting off of the domes again? Is it getting in their eyes or something? What, should I have them sanded down or something? They are rather smooth and reflective, come to think of_—

The Princess's thoughts were interrupted as Lightning Dust lifted up her megaphone and spoke to the crowd.

"The Princess has agreed to hear our concerns!"

The crowd cheered. Princess Celestia rose an eyebrow. She had said no such thing! What she actually wanted was to get back to bed and rest. But, perhaps she could quickly address the concerns of the crowd and get back to bed.

"May I borrow your megaphone, Thunderdust?" Princess Celestia asked, getting the mare's name wrong.

"Certainly, Princess." said Lightning Dust, smiling, not noticing Celestia's slip-up. She gave the megaphone to Lightning Dust, and then got another one out of her saddlebag.

"Good thing I brought a spare," she said, winking at the Princess.

"My faithful and loyalty subjects," the Princess spoke into her megaphone, "I have heard concerns of which you speak. Please, speak of them."

The crowd looked around confusedly at each other, not realizing that the Princess was simply not up to the task of public speaking at the moment. Finally, they seemed to realize what she wanted.

Another pegasus flew up to the level of the balcony. He shouted, "I shall speak only for myself, but I assume I also speak for others. My house was destroyed by Wendigos. Others' houses were destroyed by wildfires. Food prices are out of control due to Discord's drought. I am now poor and homeless, where before I had a decent life. It has been three months, and my quality of life should be changing! ISN'T THAT RIGHT!"

"RIGHT!" the crowd responded.

"Okay…" the Princess spoke into the megaphone. They wanted a better quality of life? Well, who could argue with that? But what did ivory towers mean?

She leaned away from the megaphone and address Lightning Dust directly.

"Uh, Lightningspecks? Can we have this discussion in private? I mean, where I can talk to you and find out what you—"

"The princess wants to hide her decision making behind closed doors, everypony!" Lightning Dust called out. The crowd booed.

"TRANSPARENCY! TRANSPARENCY!" the crowd chanted.

"That's right," Lightning Dust spoke into the megaphone once more, "If a town-hall style discussion is good enough for our local governments, then it is good enough for you, Princess!"

Normally, the Princess would have balked at such insolence, but she was still half sure that she was still in a dream, so she didn't say anything.

Rather, the Princess spoke into the megaphone once more, "But you mentioned ivory towers. I'll have you know that our towers are made of marble, and not—" she coughed repeatedly before continuing. Thankfully, she had remembered to bring a tissue to conceal from the crowd the fact that she was coughing blood.

She continued, "I believe ivory is found in horns. Not trumpets and saxophones, mind you, but the horns such as those of which are found upon the heads of unicorns. It's not in the capitol building. But what is your problem with my marble towers? Are they displeasing to you?"

"That's not what we mean!" Lightning Dust shouted.

"Then explain, because I don't know what you are talking about," said the Princess into the megaphone.

"The citizens of Canterlot have been spared from Discord's destruction. Yet they refuse to help us. They simply grow food and charge exorbitant prices for it! The legislature and you have also refused to help us, and now we are on your front doorstep demanding it!"

Princess Celestia's brow furrowed. She had been kept apprised of the drought, the fires, and the Wendigo Wars by her advisors, but she had no idea that the citizens were this upset about things.

The Princess spoke into her megaphone, "I have signed aid packages into law, meant to deliver monies from the treasury to the hooves of the ponies who have been struck by tragedies," she hacked and wheezed once more, before finishing, "Is this not acceptable? This is what we do during all disasters."

"Yes, and we thank you for those efforts," said Lightning Dust into her own megaphone, "But it is not enough! This is a disaster unprecedented in Equestrian history! It will take hundreds of millions more bits to make us whole!"

Celestia drew her head back. She had obviously heard these damage estimates from her economic advisors, but never expected that her citizens would demand that she pick up the whole tab.

"What of private charities?"

"What about them?" said Lightning Dust, "Yes, they exist, and yes, they have helped many of us. But they haven't helped all of us all the way, as only you can. Besides, we shouldn't have to rely on the capricious kindness of our fellow ponies in order to survive! What sort of existence is that?" The crowd cheered.

"I can approve more monies, but it won't be more than a few million," the Princess said, "Not without some new revenue raising measures."

Lightning Dust smiled and gazed at the crowd, the Princess having given her a perfect segue. "That is why we have come demanding that you institute an ivory tower tax!"

"IVORY TOWER TAX! IVORY TOWER TAX! IVORY TOWER TAX!" the ponies in the garden and on the street cheered.

"An… an ivory tower tax? What do you mean? Given the way you defined 'ivory tower,' do you mean that I should tax all the citizens of Canterlot?"

Lightning Dust responded, "Not all citizens of Canterlot, no. Simply a tax on those ponies who were unaffected by the recent disasters, and who can afford to pay it," Lightning Dust responded, "Which just so happens to affect mostly Canterlot, yes. We are all Equestrian, and we must suffer together!"

"SUFFER TOGETHER! SUFFER TOGETHER!" the crowd chanted.

"You don't understand. We have taxes on incomes already. We also have usage taxes and sales taxes. What sort of new tax do you demand?"

"Take those taxes and raise them until you have enough to make us whole!" Lightning Dust demanded.

"RAISE THE TAX! RAISE THE TAX!" the crowd responded.

"I'm sorry, I don't believe that I can go and raising the tax without financial implic—"

"RAISE THE TAX! RAISE THE TAX!" the crowd continued.

"Fine, I'll look into it," said Celestia into her megaphone, and walked back inside.

"And after you look into it, you'd better pass it, or we'll be back with thousands more! We plan on staying right here in Canterlot until you give into our demands!" Lightning Dust said into the megaphone as the Princess shut her balcony door. The crowd cheered.

Five days had passed and the protests showed no signs of letting up. Violence had briefly erupted on the fourth day, when a stallion decided to loot an antiques shop and a Canterlot police officer tried to arrest him. The stallion assaulted the officer with a knife, and he responded by shooting the looter with his revolver, killing him. A riot had broken out, and it took hours to restore order. Meanwhile, resistance in other cities was growing, and the crowds in Canterlot had swelled into the tens of thousands.

Princess Celestia was holed up in her office, speaking to her younger sister. She sat in her office chair, head buried in her hooves. Despite her sick condition, she had much work to do to keep her kingdom together.

"Luna, what should I do? They have demanded that I institute a tax upon the citizens of Canterlot," Celestia told her trusted sister.

"I do not know, sister. Why does it concern you so? Ponies protest all the time, and they demand all sorts of things," Luna responded.

"Yes, but never that many protesters, and never so… _aggressively_. Have you seen these damage reports?" Princess Celestia floated a piece of parchment towards her sister.

"Hmm. Fifty-two market stalls destroyed, a hundred carts torched, and twenty mechanized farming vehicles ruined," said Priness Luna, "I suppose that you could always call in the Royal Guard."

"To do what? Round up these protesters and throw them in jail? This is Canterlot: a rich, affluent city. The county lockup has perhaps a hundred cells."

"What about your dungeon?"

"It's reserved for those who've committed serious crimes. Vandalism is not a serious crime. The dungeon also does not have nearly enough cells."

"You could always wait for them to leave," said Luna.

"And go where? Most of these ponies are homeless," Celestia responded, nervously chuckling.

"You could just print money and give it to them," said Luna.

"And cause hyperinflation? No, thank you," the elder Princess scoffed.

"You could borrow the money," Luna suggested.

"From whom would we borrow, exactly?" Princess Celestia asked.

"I do not know, sister, who do we normally borrow from? You are far more involved in managing the treasury than I."

"That would be the Zebra and Griffon empires, and they are both at war with each other at the moment, so they are in need of cash as well," Celestia responded.

"Well... what happens if you don't grant their demands?" Princess Luna asked.

"Either they all eventually disperse, or they don't. And it's the second possibility which concerns me. If their problems are not resolved, we could have a revolution on our hooves."

"Hmm. Have you considered giving into their demands and taxing the citizens of Canterlot? You always talk of being popular, and that seems to be the popular thing to do. You always talk about avoiding a crisis, and it looks like one is about to happen if you don't act. How feasible is this ivory tower tax?"

"I have had our accountants run the numbers," Celestia responded, "Even if we taxed the stockbrokers and socialites at 50% of their income, we would still only raise ten million bits. We need over a hundred million. We'd have to tax everypony in the city at 60%, and the rich at 80% just to raise that much. That's everypony in the city, from the rich executives to the single mares living in shacks down in the city foothills."

"Well, if it's that or a revolution, then the choice is clear," Luna responded.

"I suppose it is," Celestia responded, "I just wish that there was another way."

She sighed, got up off of her chair, and walked out of the door. She gave her sister a nod as she walked off towards the Legislative building.

A month after the ivory tower tax had passed, the two unicorn socialites Jet Set and Upper Crust were taking a walk through one of Canterlot's parks.

"So, how goes work, honey?" Upper Crust asked.

"Oh, just working at Erving-Bradley, trying to make sure that our factory runs smoothly and all that," Jet Set responded, "Our bi-plane output is down by a quarter. Hopefully with farming picking back up, we'll sell more dusters," he said. As Jet Set's name would indicate, he was a factory manager at one of Canterlot's big aviation manufacturers.

"Though, of course, I might as well not even go in anymore. This new tax is ludicrous," Jet Set added.

"I know," Upper Crust responded, "I received my first stock dividend since they passed the new tax," said Upper Crust, who worked as an investor, "And do you know how much they took?"

"How much?"

"They took 70%, and that's not even counting local taxes," Upper Crust fumed, digging her hoof into the ground.

Jet Set gave her a consoling pat on the back, "There, there, honey. There's not really all that much that we can do, I suppose. The law's been passed."

"Nope. All there is to do is take a walk," she said, her husband nodding.

"Indeed, take a walk," he responded, chuckling.

Jet Set paused for a few moments before continuing, "You know, I find it funny how they think we have it so great that we can afford to work for them and take home only the scraps for ourselves. Yes, we have more money. But we have more bills, too: a larger mortgage, for one. It's just a matter of more zeroes," Jet Set scoffed.

"Perhaps we could live like paupers," Upper Crust mused, "That's what they want, right? For us to 'share their suffering?'"

"Something like that," Jet Set said as he continued walking. In another five minutes, they reached the center of the garden.

"Oh, this is new," said Upper Crust, "I never noticed that statue here. Is that supposed to be a statue of Discord?" he pointed at a statue of the Draconequss.

"I suppose. But I thought that money was tight. Yet they can afford to erect statues in the honor of a monster who destroyed half of Equestria?" Jet Set scoffed, not realizing that this statue was not a carving, but actually the real Discord turned into stone.

"Yes. This is all his fault, isn't it?" Upper Crust said.

They both walked off and left the statue in disgust.

After they had gone, the stone crumpled and Discord found that he was free once again.

"Ohhhh goodness!" he exclaimed, stretching his arms, "That was some nap. I wonder how much time has passed."

Discord snapped his fingers and the most recent copy of The Manehattan Times appeared in his hands.

"Oh my, only a month! They can't keep from fighting and causing discord for just a _month_?"

He read on in the paper for a few moments, and then burst out laughing.

"Ivory... tower tax? Hahaha! My, I couldn't have made up anything better if I tried!"

Discord glanced around in the park. It was a large park, but his was the only statue in it. He glanced some ponies off in the distance. They could not yet see him, but they were walking his way.

"Hmm... perhaps _this_ time, I'll conduct my chaos in secret," he said, as a white flash enveloped him and he transformed into a chocolate-coated unicorn. His horn glowed, and a duplicate Discord statue appeared on the plinth where he stood a few minutes before.

"Much better," he said, "Now when I cause chaos, they'll never even know that I escaped and that I'm the one who did it!"


	11. Uninvited Guests

**Canterlot, September 2014**

The streets of Canterlot were unusually quiet on this warm September day. Ponies walked to and from their destinations along the street, and most of them hung their heads low, not really glancing up from the sidewalk. As was normal for the past two months, ponies muttered amongst each other in irritated tones when they talked. The normally-upbeat residents seemed to be in a funk, and this melancholy mood combined with the cloudy grey skies gave Canterlot the appearance of a downtrodden slum rather than a proud capital city.

Of course, Prince Blueblood knew the reason, contemplating it as he walked along the cobblestone streets: the ivory tower tax. Canterlot was suffering under the weight of the rest of Equestria's devastation and their demand that the capital pick up the tab. Though Discord had spared the city, he might as well have leveled half of the buildings. The results would have been the same.

Blueblood glanced around the street and saw boarded-up shops interspersed with the few which had managed to stay in business. A building which had once been a leather furniture store stood with boarded up windows and a black-and-white sign which said "Closed."

Another building stood next to it, this one a carriage dealership. "Going out of business sale: All prices 30% off!" red letters on a bright yellow sign screamed. Glancing through the windows, Blueblood could see that there was but a single customer in the building, and she was arguing with the dealer. She was probably trying to get an even better deal.

Blueblood laughed. Everypony was somehow surprised at how horrible for business the ivory tower tax was. Not him. When typical ponies no longer had even half of the income they had merely a few months ago, they would have to make cutbacks someplace. So ponies delayed purchases of anything other than necessities. Carriages and leather furniture, nice though they were, were not necessities, because basic carts and wooden furniture were available.

Irritated though Blueblood was about having the profits from his books cut in half, he did not let it deter him from continuing writing more of them. It was not about the money, and never had been. It was about educating unicorns on how to use magic. In that department, at least, he considered his efforts over the past year and a half to have been a resounding success. He was in the process of working on his third book. This book, unlike the other two, would focus on far more advanced magic. Though it would not cover the forbidden spells for obvious reasons, it would cover the most advanced sorts of magic that it was legal to teach.

Not that long ago, ponies would spend thousands to obtain the knowledge that he was now putting into a book with a planned retail price of just twenty bits. Though it went far less in depth than college-level textbooks, and many ponies might not be able to learn it without face-to-face instruction, it still contained detailed instructions on spells. More importantly, it was written in the same sort of plain language as his other books, rather than the antiquated, flowery prose of the past that so many ancient tomes were written in.

The stress of publishing, though, was quite enormous. There were numerous deadlines, revisions, and consulting meetings that he had to attend to. Though Blueblood far preferred the job of writer to the life of a dean, it was still stressful. Today, in fact, he had an important publisher's meeting.

He walked down 3rd Street in Canterlot towards his publisher's office. Today, he was submitting the next chapter of his manuscript for editing and revision. Blueblood carried the stack of paper in his briefcase, which he levitated next to himself.

_Hmm, I should be sufficiently recharged by now._ Blueblood glanced at his pocketwatch. Five minutes since his last teleport. He felt that he would be able to perform another one easily. This one should take me the rest of the way there.

Blueblood charged up his horn, and it glowed blue with power as a white light suddenly enveloped him. With a flash and a bang, he had disappeared from his former location and was now five blocks east on the corner of 3rd Street and Hackett Avenue, where the publisher's office was located. He gazed up in the air at the multi-story building. A sign on the top read "Ink Trot Books." Blueblood had never quite gotten the reference. Maybe it was a pun on "ink blot?" Or maybe "ink spot?" He didn't know.

Blueblood had not quite been able to get across Hackett Street to his publisher's office, but no matter. He stood at the crosswalk with a group of other ponies as he waited for the crossing signal. Carriages and other vehicles moved down the street at a leisurely pace. Blueblood would have jaywalked, but he did not feel that it was becoming of a famous author to do so.

A young unicorn mare who was no older than eighteen glanced over at Blueblood then glanced back across the street. But then her eyes widened as she did a double-take and looked back at Blueblood.

"You… are you Doctor Fritz? The author of the 'Magic Made Simple' series?" she asked.

"Why yes, I am," Blueblood responded.

"I thought I recognized you from your photograph in the book! Wow, what an honor. Your books have helped me so much. They don't teach magic in school, and I thought for the longest time that I was just no good at it. But I had no idea it could be so easy to cast spells!"

"Yes, I get comments like that all the time. The state of magical education in this country is quite lacking. I have tried to convince the Princess to add more magic instruction to public schools, but she has been reluctant."

"You know the Princess?" The mare asked.

"Yes, I do. Actually, my name isn't really Doctor Fritz. It's Prince Blueblood. Doctor Fritz is just my pen name. Though I do have a doctorate; that part is true at least."

"You're a prince? Wow! That's so cool!"

"Yes, I am distantly related to Princess Celestia. Though she and I rarely speak."

At that moment, Blueblood felt a sheet of paper hit his head. He looked around in confusion as suddenly he saw several other sheets of paper. He looked up and saw a hot air balloon about a hundred feet up, which was dropping dozens of flyers down into the street below. Blueblood levitated one of them up to his eye level. It read:

**Tonight At The Canterlot Convention Center!**

ONE NIGHT ONLY. 5:00PM-MIDNIGHT.

DOORS OPEN AT 5:00PM SHARP. NO EARLY ADMITTANCE.

ALL AGES, UNICORNS ONLY

All unicorns in Canterlot are invited to a special, _magical_ celebration.

FREE ADMITTANCE

You just walk in the door. It's that simple. Unicorns only.

FREE FOOD AND DRINKS

Free fine wine and caviar, free pizza and beer, free food for all social classes and tastes! Did I mention that it's free? All you can eat.

FREE LIVE MUSIC

Music for all tastes and preferences. Guests include:

-Vinyl Scratch (AKA DJ Pon-3)

-Lyra Heartstrings

-The Canterlot Phillyharmonic Orchestra, conducted by maestro Octavia.

SPECIAL GUEST SPEAKERS

-Fashion magnate Photo Finish

-The Flim Flam brothers

-Magical expert and author, Doctor Fritz Blueblood.

If you're a unicorn, don't miss the event. If you attend, we guarantee you will remember it for the rest of your life.

Prince Blueblood flinched. Nopony had told him that he was supposed to attend this event. He looked over at the mare next to him, who had picked up a flyer of her own.

"Oh, you're speaking at this thing?" she asked him. "That's pretty cool. I might have to go just to hear you speak. That and for the free food and music."

Blueblood replied, "Well, I was never informed of this. I have no idea what this event even is. I will have to get in touch with my publisher. Actually, that is what I was just going to do."

"Okay, well I hope to see you there," she bade him farewell as they crossed the crosswalk. Blueblood waved good-bye with his hoof and opened the door to Ink Trot Publishing. Maybe he could find out some information from them.

"Well, Mister Blueblood, have you brought your latest chapter in for review and revision?" Prince Blueblood's publisher, a green mare with an auburn mane, asked.

"Certainly. Here you go," Prince Blueblood said as he opened his briefcase and levitated a large stack of papers over to her, setting it on her desk.

"Thanks. I'll have our editors read this over and they'll give you a call. Is that it for you today?"

"Well, not quite. I was wondering if the marketing director had scheduled me to appear at this unicorn event this evening? I just found out about it when I saw this flyer today, and nopony informed me that I was supposed to be speaking. My agent hasn't even gotten in touch with me about it."

He floated the flyer over to the publisher, who briefly scanned the flyer with her eyes.

"Hmmm… nope, it doesn't look familiar. I have no idea who set this event up, but they aren't related to us in any way. As far as I know, you aren't booked for anything. But it's possible that marketing has booked you for an event and hasn't relayed the information on to you yet. We did just have an outage over at our communications department, and they still don't have everything back up and running again. If I were you, I'd just show up to the event and see if you can get in touch with a manager or something. Just make sure you are ready to speak in any case.

"Well, Okay. I suppose I'll do just that," Blueblood said. Though he didn't mind public speaking and had done it before, and as a teacher had spoken in front of classrooms of hundreds on a daily basis, he did mind the fact that he had no prepared remarks and that nopony had thought to inform him that he was to speak at such a large event.

Twilight Sparkle sat in the middle of her library, busy reading a book. She had been raising the sun from Ponyville for the past few months. She and Princess Celestia had agreed that she would not move to Canterlot and assume the throne until the Princess made the fact of her imminent death public. Until that time, she would stay in Ponyville and move the sun from there, and the general public would be none the wiser.

Her concentration was broken by a shrieking voice.

"TWILIIIIIIIIGHT!"

Twilight's head jolted up as Pinkie Pie ran into the library.

"What is it, Pinkie?" Twilight asked, certain that there was some sort of emergency that required her attention.

"I need a favor, please."

"Oh," Twilight said. She sighed and grimaced in irritation. "Yes, what is it?"

"Can you please, please, please, please, PLEASE turn me into a unicorn?"

Twilight blinked a few times, and then said, "What."

"Yeah! Turn me into a unicorn, Twilight!"

"Uh, no, sorry. No such spell exists," Twilight answered. Even if such a spell did exist, Twilight would never dare to risk using it on Pinkie Pie! She was bad enough to handle as an earth pony.

"But you used a spell to give Rarity wings that one time! There's no spell to give me a horn?"

"No, sorry. Just wings."

"Awww! Ah well, thanks anyway, Twilight," Pinkie said, walking towards the door.

"Wait," said Twilight, and Pinkie stopped in her tracks, "Why do you want to be a unicorn, anyway?"

"Oh, well I found out that there's this huge, huge, huge, HUGE party up in Canterlot tonight, with free food and live music... but it's unicorns only! I still wanted to go, so that's why I was wondering."

Twilight's eyebrow raised. A unicorn-only party? She had never heard of such a thing. The only unicorn-exclusive place which she knew of was Celestia's School For Gifted Unicorns.

"That's odd. I wonder why it isn't open to the other two races," Twilight mused, "Is it magic-related? Like a magic convention or something?"

"Nope," Pinkie replied, "It's just a party. I have the flyer right here if you wanted to look at it. Hey, maybe you might want to go to this thing!"

Pinkie gave the flyer to Twilight, who glanced at it.

"Hmm. That's quite odd," said Twilight, "I wonder who is throwing this party?"

"That's the strange part," Pinkie replied, "I don't have any idea!"

"I'll write the Princess about it," said Twilight, "Maybe she knows something about this."

Blueblood stood outside of the Canterlot Coliseum. This building was a giant, marble-columned indoor stadium where many events were held. Blueblood knew it well, having attended many academic conventions here. He had even spoken a few times.

Though the time was only five 'o clock, a line of hundreds of ponies had already formed outside the doors to the event center. They were busy talking amongst themselves, chatting in eager anticipation of this event.

Blueblood walked around past the main entrance towards the side door. When he had been a guest speaker here before at his academic conferences, he had entered through this door. But when he arrived at the door, he was surprised to note that there was nopony at the booth, or nopony at all for that matter.

_Strange_… he thought. He wondered if he could open the door. He grabbed the door handle with his magic and pulled on it. It wouldn't budge.

Perhaps he would try the main entrance where the line of ponies stood. He walked over to the line. Several ponies noticed him and pointed, whispering to each other. Apparently quite a few of them knew who he was.

He figured that he might as well go to the front of the line and see if there was anypony at the main booth. He walked over to the glass window and knocked, but nopony answered.

"Yeah, it says no early admittance on the flyer, bro. And hey, do you mind not cutting? I've been in line since, like, five this morning," a young turquoise stallion with a spiked, jet-black mane who was the first in the long line said to Blueblood. The pony levitated a cigarette towards his mouth, which he took a long drag off of. He exhaled the smoke through his nose, which was adorned with a nose ring.

Blueblood responded, "My apologies, 'bro', but I am a guest speaker here and I was wondering how exactly I am supposed to enter this establishment."

"Oh, I don't know, dude. I haven't seen anypony come in or out, and I've been here all day. I don't think that it's, like, access-icable right now," he said.

"You mean to tell me that since five o' clock this morning, not a single pony has entered or exited this building?"

"Well, that's what I said just now," the pony said, taking a condescending puff of his cigarette.

"You don't seem like the most attentive type. What if somepony had entered, but you just didn't notice?"

"Dude, I would've noticed. I'm telling you, guy, nopony's been through that door."

"What color is the pony in the queue behind you?"

"What?"

"You heard me," Blueblood said. The red mare standing in line behind the stallion giggled as she was watching this exchange, as did several of the other ponies standing behind her. This was the most entertaining thing that they had seen all day in their long wait.

The young stallion answered, annoyed, "Dude, I don't know what color they are. What's with the pop-quiz,_professor_?"

Blueblood chuckled, "Actually, I am _indeed_ a professor, so I'll take your little insult as a compliment. The purpose of my question was to find out how observant you are. The pony behind you is red-coated. And apparently, judging by the fact that you have been here since five this morning and haven't the slightest idea of this, I would say that your assertion that nopony has entered the doors can't be trusted."

The red mare cut in, "Um, actually sir, he's right. I haven't seen anypony enter these doors either, and I actually have been paying attention." Several of the other ponies behind her in line nodded in agreement.

"Thank you, young lady," Prince Blueblood said.

"Hey, that means I was right," the turquoise stallion said.

"As the broken clock is right twice a day," Blueblood retorted.

"Are you insulting me or something?"

"No. To be insulted, you would have to first comprehend what was said."

The ponies in line behind him laughed. Before he could respond, Blueblood teleported back towards the end of the line. Perhaps he could simply get inside along with everypony else and then find somepony inside.

The old grandfather clock atop of the event center struck 5:00. Blueblood expected the line to move slowly, but actually it was quite quick. The line moved about a foot every second, and Blueblood was at the stadium entrance in under fifteen minutes. The only delays were from earth ponies and pegasi who held up the line begging to get in. As the line snaked along and he got closer to the booth, Blueblood could hear their protesting.

"Come on, you have to let us in. This is completely racist and discriminatory of you to not let us in," a gray pegasus stallion who had been standing in line complained.

The old, grey unicorn mare at the booth simply lowered her spectacles, narrowed her eyes, and asked him, "Do you have a horn?"

"No, but I shouldn't even need one! Come on, this is unfair! This is deponifying!"

"Sorry, sir, this is a unicorn-only event. The rules are the rules."

A giant charcoal unicorn stallion wearing sunglasses and a white muscle shirt approached the pegasus. He nervously grinned at the bouncer before flying off.

Not all of the protests appealed to racial fairness. One earth pony mare who had three foals with her begged solely on behalf of her children.

"Please, ma'am, you have to let us in to get some free food! We've traveled here all the way from Dodge Junction! The drought has destroyed our entire crop and my children are starving. I just brought them here so they could get a solid meal in their bellies."

The old unicorn mare responded, "If you can get one of the unicorn attendees to go in, grab some food for you, and bring it back out, then you are more than welcome to do so, but panhandling is not allowed on the premises of this establishment. Please take your begging out to the street."

The unicorn bouncer approached the mare and her children, and they quickly scurried away.

Finally, it was Blueblood's turn to enter. He spoke to the unicorn mare at the entrance, asking. "So, I am supposed to be speaking here; it said on the flyer. I am Doctor Fritz."

The old mare looked at him, and a look of what Blueblood thought to be worry spread over her face. The pupils of her green eyes dilated for a fraction of a second.

She responded, "Oh, um, okay. Well, here, let me just get you your horn bracelet that indicates that you are over age 21 and legally able to consume alcohol…"

"That won't be necessary, all I need is a backstage pass so I can go and give my speech," Blueblood said, "I don't drink before speaking anyway."

"Back, um, yes… backstage. I'm sorry, but it says that you are not on the list."

"Not on the list? That's outrageous. I am Doctor Fritz, and my name was on the flyer that was used to promote this little event of yours. Which, by the way, I only found out about through the flyer itself. You didn't even contact my publisher or my agent properly. Or me, for that matter."

"Sorry, sir. I guess... well, I guess I can let you in as a normal attendee if you want, though," she said.

"Oh, well, I suppose," Blueblood said. Perhaps when they called his name he could simply walk onto the stage and begin speaking anyway. The old mare floated a hornband over to Blueblood, who fitted it over his horn and walked in the door. What unprofessionalism they had exhibited! Maybe he_would_ have a drink, after all.

He walked in the door and down a long hallway leading to the colosseum. He reached a second set of doors, guarded by two unicorn stallion bouncers. They quickly patted him down and then let him through the second set of doors.

As he walked into the stadium, he saw hundreds of ponies standing around talking, eating, dancing, and listening to the music.

The first thing that struck Blueblood was how quiet the room was. He has never been in such a large stadium for an event that was this quiet. The band was the regular volume a band should be for a large stadium, but there was very little idle chit-chat among the partygoers.

Blueblood walked around, observed the ponies, and saw that several of them were speaking telepathically to one another, as magically-trained unicorns are able to do when they touch horns. He was quite surprised, as he almost never saw this form of communication outside of his own school. Perhaps his book, which gave instructions on telepathic communication, had something to do with it. He recalled a passage from his second book, Magic Every Unicorn Can And Should Use:

_"Telepathy has traditionally been seen as a solely 'intimate' form of communication, which would be an inappropriate method for unrelated unicorns to use to converse with one another. This is a false notion._

_"While telepathy can indeed be intimate, as can regular speech, it is by its NATURE no more intimate than simply speaking. As with regular speech, it is how you use it which determines how intimate or non-intimate that it is. And as with regular speech, you alone choose what information to convey and what to keep hidden. Nopony can 'read your mind' with telepathy; this is nothing but a false rumor which has hindered telepathy's widespread adoption. The only thing 'intimate' about telepathy is that, unlike speech, it can only be used to convey a message to one pony at a time and can only be used at short range._

_"But what does set telepathy apart from speaking is not its intimacy, but its efficiency and effectiveness. Only with telepathy can you have a conversation with someone where it would otherwise be impractical, such as in a quiet library or a loud tavern. Only with telepathy can you be assured that your message reaches only its intended receiver; eavesdropping on a telepathic conversation is impossible._

_"Only with telepathy can you convey images rather than words. A picture is worth a thousand words, is it not? Indeed, telepathy is far more efficient than speech in that way. Why take minutes to describe a scene or event to somepony when you can telepathically relay it to them in seconds?_

_"With telepathy blind unicorns can see, mute unicorns can speak, deaf unicorns can hear, so it is far more egalitarian and inclusive than regular speech and sensory information in who may participate in it. All one needs is a horn. Why selfishly exclude the disabled from the world of communication and knowledge simply because of an illogical cultural taboo?_

"_'But Doctor Fritz,' I can hear you say, 'Telepathy is advanced magic! I can't possibly learn it!' That is another preconception that I hope to put to rest with this book. Simply because you were never taught it in school does not mean that it is advanced. Nopony would call riding a bicycle 'advanced,' even though no schools teach it. But if you don't practice cycling, and nopony else you know practices cycling or shows you how, then it may certainly SEEM advanced. But it is not."_

Blueblood smiled at the thought that his simple books might have altered social norms in such a short time frame.

He walked over to the bar and scanned the menu. He was surprised at the wide variety of drinks, and took a minute to decide. Finally, he settled on a sherry. The barpony poured him a glass of it, which Blueblood took a sip of. It was some of the most delicious wine that he had ever drank. He reached into his suit pocket to pull out his wallet, but the barpony put his hoof up.

"That won't be necessary sir; everything is free here this evening."

Blueblood was quite shocked. Whoever was running this event must have had a great deal of money to throw around. This wine must have been at least twenty years old, and they were giving it out for free! _If only they could use some of that money for a better events coordinator and planner,_ he thought.

Spike belched as a fiery scroll emerged from his mouth. Twilight opened it up and read aloud to Pinkie,

"_Dear Twilight Sparkle, I am unfamiliar with this unicorns-only event you asked me about. I was not invited, and did not plan this event myself. However, it does sound like fun, if not a bit exclusionary in nature. Perhaps you and your friends could go anyway? If they say no because not all of your friends are unicorns, just tell them that you're a Princess. I'm sure they will respectfully oblige. Sincerely, Princess Celestia._"

"Ooh, I never even thought of that!" Pinkie said, "I keep forgetting that you're a Princess now. They'll have to let us in; you're royalty and we're your friends!"

"Okay, I guess that's a legitimate strategy," said Twilight, "Worst case scenario, Rarity can just make us some fake horns like she made us fake wings back in Cloudsdale."

Twilight and Pinkie went around Ponyville and they rounded up their other four friends, who were all interested in going to the event. Rarity used her magic to quickly fashion some fake horns out of papier-mâché, just in case they needed to sneak in.

"Well, we may be uninvited guests," said Rarity, "But with these fake horns, we'll be the life of the party!"

With that, the six ponies boarded a train to Canterlot.


	12. The Death of the Party

A loud screeching sound pierced the air, and plumes of steam and smoke surrounded the train station as the 7:00 PM train from Ponyville arrived.

"Here we are in Canterlot, everypony!" the conductor yelled.

The six ponies exited the train onto the platform.

"Ooh, this is going to be so fun!" said Pinkie Pie, her fake horn bouncing up and down on her head as she hopped.

"Pinkie, you may need to fasten that horn down. Here, let me help you out," said Rarity, using her magic to fasten the thin, clear fishing wire holding the horn down.

"It's kind of like wearing a party hat," said Pinkie.

"Much better," said Rarity, "You four need to be _convincing_ unicorns. I would ask that you stop hopping around, Pinkie; such conduct is unbecoming of a unicorn. A unicorn must conduct herself with beauty and grace."

"Geez, bein' prejudiced there, aint' ya, Rare? Earth ponies can be classy, too," Applejack chuckled, hatless.

"And that's another thing. Though you followed my advice and got rid of that unsightly cowpony hat, there probably isn't a unicorn alive who has your accent, Applejack. I would tone it down a notch."

"But that's how I talk; I ain't changin' that!"

"Fine, if you want us to be caught," Rarity retorted, "Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy, are your saddles firmly hiding your wings?"

"Yes," said Fluttershy.

"Do I have to wear this thing? I want to fly!" complained Rainbow Dash.

"Unicorns cannot fly," said Rarity, "Unless of course, they happen to be alicorns."

Twilight responded, "Yeah. Sorry that you all have to wear this stuff."

"That's okay, sugarcube. You got us on the train for free, remember? Bein' a princess has it's perks n' all," Applejack said.

"Ahem," grunted Rarity.

"I mean... thank you kindly, darling, for allowing us to be admitted onto the train free of charge. Pip pip, wot wot, cheerio," Applejack said. The other five ponies laughed.

"Well, we have a long walk to get to the events center," said Twilight, "It's clear on the other side of town."

They started their walk towards the coliseum.

Blueblood sat in a seat in front of the stage, sipping his wine. Though Blueblood did not normally listen to any genre of music other than classical, he had stood around and watched the bands play for about an hour.

DJ Pon3 he found to be entirely insufferable. He wondered how anypony could ever listen to such synthesized garbage. Lyra Heartstrings, however, had played some interesting rock-influenced jazz fusion pieces interspersed with lyre solos. She had even broken out an electric violin, which the crowd (and even Blueblood) enjoyed. Finally, she finished up her set.

"That was the Lyra Heartstrings Band, everypony!" the crowd cheered as the mint-green unicorn played an encore riff on her electric violin, and her band bowed.

Blueblood walked towards the side of the stage. He figured that now was a good time to try and go backstage. He found a set of stairs at the rear and walked up until he reached the door to the backstage, which he climbed, only to be met by another black-shirted bouncer.

"Sorry, sir, only performers and guest speakers are allowed backstage." He held up a hoof to block Blueblood's path.

"I _am_ a guest speaker. I am Doctor Fritz Blueblood, and I am supposed to be speaking this evening."

"Where's your badge?"

"That's my problem. Nopony informed me that I was supposed to be speaking; I only found out about it after reading an airdropped flyer. I showed up early, and the pony at the front gates rudely informed me that I was not on the list."

The bouncer pulled out a clipboard and scanned his eyes over it. He spoke into a headset microphone that he wore, consulting with whatever pony was on the other end.

"Yes, we have a Doctor Fritz Blueblood here," he said.

Blueblood could hear talking from the other end, but couldn't quite make out words.

"Uh huh. Yeah, he was on the flyer," he continued, "And he actually showed up, yeah."

More mumbled talking on the other end.

"What do you mean you didn't expect it?"

Yet more mumbled talking on the other end, of which Blueblood could make out, "...none of the others showed up."

"Well, he's on the flyer. I guess he found out about it and decided to come."

Blueblood could make out a snippet from the other end this time, "...escort him out so he's not not still here when..."

"Yeah. Yeah. Alright, I'll pass it along to him," the bouncer said. He then looked at Blueblood, "That won't be necessary, sir. It appears that you have been removed from the list of guest speakers."

"WHAT? When did this happen?" Blueblood gasped.

"I don't know, sir; that's what our coordinator just said. So, you will be leaving the party?"

Blueblood grimaced and groaned, "Absolutely, and I can not leave here fast enough. How dare you all waste my valuable time with these shenanigans!"

"Allow me to show you to the door—"

"That won't be necessary, sir," said Blueblood as he teleported off towards the door, eager to leave as quickly as possible.

_How rude! How unprofessional! How—_

"Octavia!" he heard the announcer yell as the sound of a cello and a classical orchestra started.

—_How beautiful!_ Hypnotized by the music, Blueblood instantly forgot that he was about to leave the party, and instead sat down in a seat and listened to Octavia and her orchestra play. They played for about half an hour, after which the chocolate-coated unicorn walked on stage once more and spoke.

"That was Octavia and the Phillyharmonic Orchestra, everypony; give them a hoof! Now, we have a special guest speaker. He's a royal prince of Equestria, a doctorate in magic, former professor and university dean, and the author of the best-selling Useful Magic Made Simple books, DOCTOR FRITZ, a.k.a. PRINCE BLUEBLOOOOOOOOOOOD!"

Blueblood grinned. He hadn't been removed from the list, after all. Good thing that he had stayed. He began to walk over towards the stage, pushing his way through cheering ponies in the crowd. As he was about halfway through the crowd, however, he saw something which shocked him.

There, up on the stage, stood a pony which looked exactly like him. The crowd applauded as this fake took the microphone and spoke, in a voice which sounded just like Blueblood's.

"Hello, Canterlot. I am Doctor Fritz Blueblood, eager to speak to you all about magic!"

Blueblood's heart jumped in his chest as his doppelgänger levitated the microphone up to his mouth with a dark green aura of magic. Green was not his color, blue was. Green was the color of Changeling magic.

"The idea for the book came to me in a dream, of course. I was visited in a dream by Starswirl the Bearded. He told me that I should educate the masses on magic, and of course I had to oblige. After all, it was freakin' Starswirl for crying out loud!"

The crowd gave a laugh. Blueblood's stomach churned. They couldn't even get his backstory right. His idea for the book was his own, not Starswirl's! And he would never be caught dead saying, "freakin' Starswirl for crying out loud."

"So I came to this little shindig along with my friend Vinyl Scratch. She invited me. And since I admire her so much as a musician, I said well sure, why not?"

The crowd cheered, and Blueblood flinched. Vinyl Scratch, the fount from which that wretched rave drivel spewed, a _good musician_?

The changeling's eyes glowed green as he absorbed the crowd's adoration of Doctor Fritz. He continued, "So anyway, I'm glad that you all like my book. I'm real proud of it, myself. Hope it has helped you to more better use magic."

Blueblood gasped. _More better use magic? MORE BETTER!? Why, he isn't even grammatically correct!_ At that instant, a spark shot from his horn as he disappeared in a flash of white light. Blueblood reappeared on the stage along with the phony and pushed him aside with his telekinesis, grabbing the microphone himself.

"Don't listen to this charlatan! You've all been duped! I am the REAL Doctor Fritz Blueblood. This pony is a changeling, and he's absorbing your love and adoration of him!"

The crowd of ponies gasped and excitedly muttered amongst themselves.

"It must be some sort of duplication spell."

"Yeah, he must be just hamming it up for the crowd."

"I wonder if the spell will be in his new book?"

Blueblood stood on the stage attempting to convince them that it was no spell, but suddenly the brown unicorn ran back on stage. He grabbed the microphone from Blueblood and spoke,

"Well, that was Doctor Fritz! And next up we have—"

"WHAT SORT OF OPERATION ARE YOU RUNNING HERE, SIR?" Blueblood shouted out. However, the brown unicorn ignored Blueblood, simply throwing him off the stage and out into the crowd with his magic. Blueblood's fans grabbed him and passed him around the crowd as if he were a rock star. While he was involuntarily crowd-surfing, he could hear the brown unicorn speak above the din of the excited crowd.

"Yes, and that was Doctor Fritz Blueblood with his duplication spell, coming up in his newest book. Unfortunately, we are running low on time, so he will not be taking questions. So I have another announcement to make before we begin."

The ponies in the crowd simmered down, setting Blueblood back on his feet towards the rear of the auditorium.

The brown unicorn said, "I have good news and bad news. The good news is that our next guest will be none other than Princess Celestia!"

The crowd went wild. Some of them booed and hissed, upset at Celestia for the ivory tower tax. Many others applauded for her regardless; either they were not from Canterlot or simply wanted to show due respect.

"But the bad news is that unfortunately, the Princess could not quite make it in pony, as she is deathly ill. Fortunately, she has given me this audio recording to play for you all. So without further ado, here is Princess Celestia!"

The brown unicorn set a phonograph machine down next to the microphone, which began to play Celestia's voice.

"_Unicorns of Equestria…"_

The crowd leaned forward in anticipation.

"_I simply do not trust the unicorns as a race."_

The entire crowd gasped. Though they did not know it, they were listening to a recording of Celestia's conversation with Twilight which Discord had secretly taped while he was eavesdropping on them.

"_I have taken steps… limiting gatherings of large numbers of unicorns… Do you think that it is a coincidence that there are no unicorns-only cities, when both the pegasi and earth ponies have their own cities? I must approve all land grants for new cities. Do you honestly think in all my years of ruling I have never gotten a request from a group of unicorns to form their own city? I have, but have always had reasons to say no. 'Oh, that's where some endangered fox lives.' 'I already have another request for a city in that location.' 'You want to call your city WHAT now?' And the unicorns are none the wiser."_

Discord grabbed the microphone and shouted, "That's right, Unicorns. Princess Celestia cares nothing about you! No large gatherings. If she had her way, you all wouldn't be here in this room enjoying my party right now!"

"BOO!" the crowd shouted. The chocolate unicorn who was Discord in disguise simply turned up the volume, drowning out the jeering of the crowd.

"_I discourage the use of magic... Every unicorn who discovers that his special talent is actually embroidery or cooking or painting instead of magic is one less potential threat to my rule, after all. Every time that somepony on the Board of Education brings up teaching magic in schools, I simply argue that magic is too dangerous to teach in schools to young fillies and colts, and that curriculum such as reading, writing, and arithmetic should take precedence._

"_Why has__Useful Magic Made Simple__has been so popular lately? Blueblood is teaching magical spells such as teleportation, telepathy, dowsing, and other spells which any unicorn fifth-grader could learn, but were never taught in any public school. The book is essentially remedial magic."_

"As so many of you have learned from Doctor Fritz's book," Discord said, "These spells aren't rocket science."

"TYRANT!"

"DICTATOR!"

"FRAUD!"

A few of the ponies looked back towards Blueblood. Blueblood yelled, "It's true! She hates the unicorns! I wrote those books to help everypony learn magic where she refused to teach them!"

The crowd threw tomatoes and other assorted food onto the empty stage. Discord put up a small, yellow force-field around the phonograph machine to protect it from the culinary onslaught. Discord grinned as the crowd became more and more unruly and upset.

The recording continued, this time with Twilight Sparkle's voice:

"_I can see your point… unicorns are more dangerous than the other two pony races."_

The ponies gasped briefly at the selectively-edited recording, and continued to boo. Discord grabbed the microphone once more and said, "Yes, you heard right everypony, Celestia's lackey Twilight Sparkle even agrees with her! She was promoted to alicorn, so why should she have any sympathy with unicorns anymore?"

"BOO!"

"RACE TRAITOR!"

"EGGHEAD!"

The tape concluded with a single statement from Celestia,_"My position in power would be a lot more secure if the unicorns were gone."_

The chocolate unicorn took the microphone and said, "That's right, unicorns, you heard it correctly: Celestia wants you DEAD!"

The thousands of ponies in the stadium became furious. They knocked over tables, they threw even more food at the stage, and they even lit a few small fires.

Blueblood ran towards the doors to the hallway of the entrance of the events center. He did not want to be caught here if there was a riot. As he approached the door, however, he noticed that it was closed. He attempted to open it, but it was locked from the outside. Several other ponies waited near the door; apparently they had had the same idea of leaving.

"Why aren't these doors unlocked?"

"When will they let us out?"

"Let me at her, I'm gonna go smash the palace windows!"

Blueblood looked back behind him towards the stage. A green gas began slowly emitting from the fog machines. The musical stars and his own doppelganger all walked back on stage and revealed their true forms. They were all changelings. The ponies gasped.

Discord revealed his true form to the crowd. He took the microphone in his lion paw and said, "That's right, everypony. Princess Celestia wants you dead, and it is my job to ensure that it happens. No, don't thank me, don't curse me; all the credit goes to Celestia. If any of you survive, you can go thank HER for this wonderful evening."

Screams rang out all throughout the audience. The ponies in the front row began gasping for breath as the changelings all donned gas masks. Discord was going to gas the entire stadium, thousands upon thousands of unicorns, to death.

"Well, we're finally here!" Twilight exclaimed as they walked onto the grass in front of the Canterlot Events Center.

"It certainly was a long enough walk," said Rarity.

"Eh, not so bad when you're an earth pony disguised as a unicorn," Applejack responded.

"Wait... are those screams I hear?" said Fluttershy.

"Oh, everypony must be having a blast in there!" Pinkie exclaimed.

"Uh, those sound more like screams of terror to me," said Rainbow Dash. She removed her saddle, took off into the air, and flew around the side of the stadium towards a window. She quickly zipped back.

"Uh... guys... there's changelings in there with gas masks, and a bunch of ponies convulsing on the floor. I think that they're gassing the stadium."

"OH NO!" the other five ponies yelled out.

"Alright gang, I've got this," said Twilight Sparkle. A flash of light enveloped her as she disappeared. About a minute later, she reappeared with a case containing the elements of harmony.

"That was quick," Rainbow Dash said.

"I hid them inside of the Princess' vault. Thankfully, her castle is just right up the street," Twilight responded, "Alright, let's go in there and save them!"

They ran towards the front door, where the old grey mare stood.

"Yeah, nice try. I just saw that rainbow-maned one fly around. You aren't real unicorns, are you?" she said.

"No, but you'd better let us in! There's an attack or something going on!" Rainbow Dash demanded.

"Nope," she said. But Fluttershy took off her saddle, silently flew up to the gatekeeper and looked her straight in the eyes with a menacing glare. The gatekeeper had a sudden change of heart.

"Uh, I guess I can make an exception," she said, and walked over to the door, opening it with a key. Fluttershy had used the stare on her.

"You might need one of these, though," she said, and grabbed a box out of her booth. The ponies glanced in the box and saw about ten gas masks.

"Oh dear! Discord is gassing the entire roomful of ponies!" Rarity gasped.

"That's why they were convulsing!" Rainbow realized.

"Let's hurry!" Said Twilight with a renewed strength. The six ponies donned the masks and ran through the doors.

They ran down the hallway leading to the colleseum. As they reached the end of the hallway, they say the two unicorn stallion bouncers wearing gas masks and blocking their path, standing in front of a second set of steel doors. The door had a large bar in front of it.

"Halt! No earth ponies or pegasi allowed!" one of them yelled, noticing Rainbow and Fluttershy flying. He held up his hoof in warning. As he said this, Rainbow Dash zipped towards him, landing a blow on his muzzle. He fell to the ground.

"Aah!" He yelled.

The other pony grabbed Rainbow Dash's tail with his magic and threw her back towards the other five. However, as he did this, Applejack ran up to the stallion, flipped around 180 degrees and bucked him in the chest. He fell to the ground, the wind knocked out of him. As he fell, his true form was revealed: he was a Changeling drone.

"Okay, let's open this door, hopefully we're not too late!" Twilight said as she lifted the bar off of the door with her magic.

At that instant, the door burst open, and dozens upon dozens of unicorns streamed through. They were coughing and wheezing as they ran, pushing against the mane six as they desperately attempted to escape. Many flashes of light banged out as the unicorns who knew how to teleport escaped through the open passageway. (Teleportation only works when there is a clear path for the unicorn's body to move through, which is why none of them used that method to escape before the door was opened.)

The hallway quickly filled up as unicorns ran through. Many were trampled underhoof in the mad frenzy, and they screamed as the hooves of the others stomped on them.

Rainbow Dash grabbed Applejack, Fluttershy grabbed Pinkie Pie, and they all flew up to the twelve-foot high ceiling of the hallway to avoid being trampled. Twilight flew up and joined them, but forgot to grab Rarity. Rarity, gasping at the oncoming crowd, levitated herself up to the ceiling. Now they all were safe from the frantic crowd below.

"We need to see if Discord is still in there!" Twilight yelled over the screaming of the fleeing ponies, "Let's get in there and find him!"

"TWILIGHT SPARKLE!" The alicorn glanced down and saw a white unicorn stallion with a blond mane yelling at her from among the crowd.

"Prince Blueblood? What are you doing here?" Twilight yelled out to him. Blueblood levitated himself up to the ceiling to meet his former student. Twilight used her magic to rip one of the gas masks from the unconscious bodies of the changeling bouncers below, and gave it to Blueblood, who put it on.

Blueblood began speaking, "Discord is here, and there are Changelings too—"

At that moment, a bronze-coated unicorn in the throng of escaping ponies glanced up at the ceiling and saw Twilight Sparkle.

"IT'S CELESTIA'S LACKEY! She's wearing a gas mask; SHE'S IN ON THIS PLOT!"

Other ponies looked up above them and gasped at Twilight Sparkle. The bronze unicorn fired a powerful blast of energy from his horn, which hit Twilight Sparkle square in the jaw. The alicorn recoiled from the blow, falling to the ground below.

She was quickly trampled as the escaping unicorns stepped on her on their way out. A few resentful unicorns even stopped to kick her. She yelled out in pain. One of them stabbed Twilight with his horn. Eventually, she stopped screaming as she blacked out.

"We have to do something to help her!" Fluttershy cried out.

"It's no use, they'll just go after you, too," Blueblood yelled, "Discord played a rather unflattering audio recording of her. Everypony thinks that she hates unicorns."

"Wait, what? But she IS a—" Applejack asked.

"I'll explain later, there's no time!" Blueblood said, "You have to stop Discord!"

"But we can't, Twilight is the Element of Magic and we need her," Rarity explained.

"Then I will be the Element of Magic!" Prince Blueblood said. He magically lifted Twilight's tiara from off of her head and placed it upon his own head.

"Follow me!" he yelled. A white flash of light emanated from his horn as he and Rarity disappeared and reappeared inside of the colleseum on top of a large snack table about five hundred feet beyond the door. The two pegasi saw him and followed, with Applejack and Pinkie in tow. They flew above the maddened throngs, safe from being shoved and trampled.

"Well this is awkward," said Rarity, standing atop the table with Blueblood as they waited for the burdened Rainbow Dash and the slow Fluttershy to catch up.

"I only teleported you with me because I figured your levitation spell would be wearing off soon."

"Well, thank you, sir," she said, blushing. But then she added, "Now if only you would have been so considerate of my needs at the Grand Galloping Gala!"

Blueblood flinched. "You're still upset about that? Why, I would think that you would be grateful that a forty-year-old Prince like me would be willing to spend any time at all with a young commoner mare like you."

"Why, I never!" Rarity exclaimed, raising a hoof at Blueblood until Fluttershy, who had just arrived, flew in-between her and Blueblood.

"You two, focus!" she commanded. Rainbow Dash was soon there as well, and set Applejack and Pinkie Pie down on the snack table.

"Okay, Discord is on the stage, right over there." Blueblood said, pointing about five hundred feet down towards the stage where the Draqonequs stood, laughing at the crowd. He did not seem to even notice the six element holders, as he was far too busy watching the hundreds of dying ponies below him.

The six ponies could still hear Celestia's voice over the sound system, repeating over and over again in an endless loop, "…if the unicorns were gone… if the unicorns were gone… if the unicorns were gone…"

They could also see that in front of the stage, hundreds upon hundreds of ponies were coughing and wheezing to death, attempting to escape through the haze. Ponies shoved each other in a frantic bid to escape. The changelings, wanting their share of the action, were busy capturing ponies inside of cocoons. They also blocked the stairwells to escape the colleseum, preventing ponies from leaving.

Blueblood formulated a plan, "So, I want you five to fly down there and confront Discord. He will notice that Twilight is not with you, and he won't run away. But then, I will sneak up on him by teleporting behind him, and then we will seal him away. Remember, Discord doesn't know that I am with you, so I am the element of surprise in this."

"But I thought that you're the element of magic!" Pinkie Pie joked. The others groaned at the pun.

"Fluttershy, darling, do you think that you can carry me down there?" Rarity asked.

"Oh, sure thing," she said, lifting Rarity into the air. Rainbow Dash grabbed both Pinkie Pie and Applejack and they headed towards the stage, keeping at a high altitude so as to avoid the changelings' sight.

Once they were in position above Discord, they dropped down onto the stage and into his view. He looked down at them and smiled.

"Ah, the Elements of Harmony! I was wondering when you would show up. But where is your sixth member? Oh, that's right, I seem to recall hearing her tortured screams from all the way down here! I knew that the crowd of angry unicorns wouldn't let her in here after what she and Celestia said about the unicorn race! Even if, by doing so, they were inadvertently preventing her from re-imprisoning me. But then again, an angry mob isn't exactly logical in that respect."

"Yeah, but we're ready to fight you anyway!" Applejack called out.

"Oh, without the element of magic? Hah! That's the most important element of all. How do you expect to fight me without that critical element?"

"We don't."

Discord glanced behind him to see Prince Blueblood. Before he knew what was happening, the six elements had united and sent a rainbow wave towards Discord, and he was quickly turned to stone.

"I'm going to do something which should have been done a long time ago," Prince Blueblood said, "You have tried to kill the unicorn race and tax them to death with your devestation elsewhere. For that, I hereby put you to death."

Prince Blueblood's eyes began glowing blue. A blue beam emitted from his horn towards the stone statue of Discord, which crumbled to dust.

The five other ponies gasped. Discord was no more. They had no idea that the elements could be used to kill anyone. Had they known a bit more about the element of magic, they would have known that it was a magical enhancer, which multiplies the wearer's skill with magic. So the normally non-lethal magical energy beams were now, with the element of magic, powerful enough to kill.

Blueblood turned towards the changelings and fired beams at each one of them. They vaporized one by one. He then fired beams at the fog machines, which exploded and stopped emitting the deadly , he cast another spell which dissipated the gas that had already been spewed out into the room.

The entire room went silent. The surviving ponies in the crowd stared blank-faced at Blueblood. The only sound that could be heard was the drone of "…if the unicorns were gone…if the unicorns were gone…" from the stereo. Blueblood looked over at the phonograph, looked back at the crowd, grinned, and then fired one final blast from his horn at the phonograph, destroying it.

Then, one by one, the surviving ponies stomped their hooves on the ground and cheered.

"DOCTOR FRITZ!

DOCTOR FRITZ!"

Eventually, a second line was added to the cheer,

"DOCTOR FRITZ! HE'S OUR PRINCE!"

"DOCTOR FRITZ! HE'S OUR PRINCE!"

Prince Blueblood took off his element of magic tiara and his gas mask and took a bow. The crowd roared even louder. The other five ponies who stood on stage with him looked at each other and rolled their eyes, letting him bask in his fame as they ran back towards the entrance to check on their alicorn friend. Hopefully she isn't dead, they all thought.


	13. Unistorm

The paramedics rushed through the doors of the stadium, running down and tending to injured ponies. The crowd had stopped cheering for Blueblood by this point, and the ponies were slowly filing out of the stadium in an orderly fashion, in contrast to the free-for-all stampede which had earlier ensued.

They found Twilight Sparkle outside of the stadium, passed out behind the entrance booth. She was very badly injured, but the paramedics checked her pulse and confirmed that she was still breathing and would live.

"Oh, thank Celestia!" Fluttershy cried out, hugging Twilight's unconscious body.

Surprisingly, out of the crowd of three thousand ponies, only about fifty of them died from the gas poisoning. Another three were trampled to death in the chaos which ensued as the ponies had tried to escape. The number would likely have been a lot higher if it were not for the many unicorns in the crowd who knew how to teleport to safety, thereby reducing the congestion.

At eight o'clock, Blueblood exited the stadium. He arrived to the entrance in time to see Twilight being carted off on a stretcher. Her five friends were following her, and would keep her company in the hospital.

"Oh, Miss Sparkle! I almost forgot, I should give this back to you," he said, levitating the element of magic tiara onto her head.

"You know she can't hear you, right?" one of the pony paramedics said, "If you want to talk to her you can come to the hospital and see her when she wakes up."

"Oh, that's alright. I have to be going, anyway." Prince Blueblood said, and started to walk away. The paramedics walked in the direction of the hospital, and Blueblood began to walk along his way.

"Wait! Before you go, thank you so much for your help, Prince Blueblood. We were lucky to have you around to wield the element of magic," Rainbow Dash said.

Blueblood turned around and said, "Oh, well thank you, young mare."

"Yeah. I never knew you were so good at magic! From what Rarity told us all about you, I'da thought you were nothin' but a stuck-up jerk, but I reckon there's more to you than meets the eye," said Applejack.

"No. There's less," Rarity scoffed, furrowing her brow, resentful of Blueblood's basking in the crowd's adoration.

"Aw, come on, Rarity. You love attention, too. I'd bet money that if they'd been cheerin' for _you_, you'da been up there soakin' it in like a pig in mud!"

"Well, perhaps…" Rarity's voice trailed off. She continued, "Oh, I suppose I would have. But, thank you, Prince Blueblood. You really did do a good job up there."

"Yeah, you did a super terrific, changeling-bashing, Discord-dissolving bang up job!" Pinkie said as she hopped in the air."

"But… did you really have to kill Discord and all of those changelings?" Fluttershy asked, "That seemed a little bit excessive," Fluttershy hung her head low as she walked.

"Perhaps," said Blueblood, "But I did not think so. I was simply making sure that Discord could not threaten Equestria again."

"How DID you use that element, anyway?" asked Rainbow Dash, "I thought only the six of us could use it."

"Anypony who has love and friendship in their hearts can use the elements," said Blueblood, "Though I am not friends with you five, and in fact only know Rarity and Twilight, I did have a connection with the ponies whose lives I was saving: they were fans of my book and fellow unicorns."

"Speaking OF unicorns," said Rarity, "Why was this event unicorns-only? What was all that about Celestia saying 'if the unicorns were gone?' And why did the crowd try to hurt Twilight Sparkle?"

Blueblood answered, "Discord played a recording of Princess Celestia saying that she distrusted unicorns, and that this is why she prevented unicorns from having their own cities, or having large gatherings. This is also apparently the reason why she raises the sun; she took over the job from the unicorns of old because she doesn't trust the unicorns with it like she trusts pegasi to manage the weather or earth ponies to grow food. And, she has hobbled magical education in the kingdom because she doesn't trust unicorns to use magic properly.

"Discord also played an audio recording of Twilight saying that she could see Celestia's point and agreeing that unicorns are dangerous. The recording that was playing over and over was of Celestia saying that her job would be easier if the unicorns were gone. Discord apparently took that literally, as a license from the princess herself to kill, and I guess he organized this event to try and kill as many unicorns as he could."

"Was the tape real? How do we know he didn't fake it?" Applejack asked.

"That's a possibility," Prince Blueblood said, "Though from my interactions with the Princess over the years as dean of her school, I would say that even if this was not actually her voice, and even if she did not say these exact words, the message itself definitely matches her motivations. How else would anypony explain her clearly-different treatment of unicorns from all other pony races?"

The other five ponies were silent. They obviously did not have an answer for this question because it was one they had never thought to ask. Finally, Pinkie asked, "So why were the changelings here?"

Blueblood answered, "Discord needed to get as many unicorns in one place as possible to carry out his massacre. The best way he could do that was to throw a free concert with free food, famous musicians, and famous guest speakers such as myself. The food was synthetic, as the remaining food disappeared off of the tables as soon as Discord's statue shattered. However, though he can make synthetic food, I don't think even Discord is powerful enough to take on the form and voice of famous musicians, let alone an entire band of musicians and a security crew all at once.

"So, in exchange for taking the form of famous musicians to help with his fake concert, in exchange for providing security and bouncers to keep ponies from escaping, the changelings got to feed off of the love the crowd has for these performers. And then, whatever ponies the poison gas didn't kill, the changelings would get to capture in their cocoons.

"I don't think that Discord was counting on any of the actual musicians or guests actually showing up, because most of them don't live anywhere near Canterlot. The event was only advertised for a single day, not enough time for word to reach them and for them to actually show up. Except for me, of course, and when I actually showed up, it kind of threw a wrench in his plans."

"Well, thanks again, Prince Blueblood," Applejack said, "We're gonna go to the hospital to keep Twi company while she's healin'."

"Alright, wish her the best for me," Blueblood replied. He and the ponies parted ways as he headed down the road towards his home.

Prince Blueblood walked up the long cobblestone street towards his house. The path was illuminated by the bluish glow of electric lamps. Blueblood would have utilized a teleport in his walk home, but he was far too distracted by the events which had earlier transpired. He preferred walking, as this helped him focus his thoughts.

So Celestia really didn't trust the unicorns at all. Blueblood had been right all along. Not only that, but because of this, Discord had chosen to target the unicorns in particular.

_What can be done to correct these injustices?_ He thought. He had already written a book to help educate unicorns. It didn't do nearly enough to rectify the lack of formal training, but it was better than nothing. But it sounded to him from the recording he had heard that it went far beyond a simple lack of education. Celestia had refused unicorns their own cities, she had locked up magic spells, she had done everything that she could to stop unicorns from realizing their potential. For all he knew, she had other policies in place which he didn't even know about.

Though, Celestia was not long for this world. He wondered, would Twilight Sparkle would continue these policies? Judging just from her recording, she would seem to at least be open to Celestia's policies, if not continue them herself. Princess Luna was another factor which he was considering. How did she play into all of this?

Blueblood was about a quarter of a mile from his home when his thoughts were interrupted by the sound of a crowd. He could not imagine what this sound could possibly be, as the Canterlot Events Center was in the opposite direction. He listened closely and determined that the noise was coming from the direction of the Royal Palace, another few miles up the hill.

He trotted briskly in that direction, his curiosity getting the better of him. As he approached the front gates of Celestia's palace, he noticed that a large mob of unicorns wielding torches and pitchforks had gathered outside the gates. Angry shouts and chants rose from the mob.

"CELESTIA HAS GOT TO GO!"

"EXPLAIN YOURSELF!"

A group of royal guards stood in front of the gates, characteristically blank stares on their faces.

"You're in on this, aren't you, pegasus!" One of the unicorns shoved his hoof into the face of a white pegasus guard. The pony did not blink, instead standing firm against his accuser.

"CITIZENS OF CANTERLOT!" The crowd quieted as Princess Luna flew above the crowd, using the Royal Canterlot Voice.

"Princess Celestia is in bed sick at the moment. What is the meaning of this demonstration?" Luna bellowed.

"You hate unicorns, don't you!"

"We heard the tape! Celestia hates the unicorns, and she sent Discord to gas us all to death!"

"Twilight Sparkle is in on it; she was on the tape, and I saw her wearing a gas mask!"

Princess Luna yelled back, "Yes, we have heard of the recent terrorist incident in Canterlot perpetrated by Discord. Rest assured that all guilty parties will be brought to justice-"

"The fox is guarding the henhouse!" one of the stallions yelled.

"Bring justice to yourself!" a mare yelled, "We heard the tape!"

"CITIZENS," Luna bellowed, "Bear in mind that Discord possesses powerful magic. Anything you heard could have been faked by him in order to cause discord."

"Yeah, then how do you explain Celestia's treatment of unicorns? The magic laws, raising the sun, not allowing unicorn cities, hobbling education... Discord may have faked the tape, but he didn't fake that!" another yelled.

"Don't forget the ivory tower tax that only affects Canterlot!" a mare screamed.

Luna responded, "Princess Celestia is not here right now, or else I would have her answer these questions. She is involved in making those decisions, not I. Unfortunately, she is in bed sick at the moment-"

"A likely story!" one pony yelled, "She just doesn't want to face us! She's racist against unicorns!"

"LUNA'S A LIAR!" screamed another.

"LIAR! LIAR! LIAR!" the crowd chanted.

"I AM NOT A LIAR!" she yelled out in the Royal Canterlot Voice, "CELESTIA DOESN'T HATE UNICORNS! SHE MERELY MISTRUSTS THEM BECAUSE OF THEIR POWERFUL MAGIC-"

The crowd booed at her statement.

"Mistrust this!" a cream-colored mare yelled, and let loose a magical beam of energy from her horn. The Princess flew to the side and dodged it, but soon dozens of other beams flew towards the Princess before she could react, one of which hit her. She fell to the ground.

Blueblood couldn't get a good look, but he could hear incredibly loud screaming from what he presumed was the Princess.

"Off with her head!"

"Let this serve as a warning to you, Celestia!"

Soon, dozens and dozens of pegasi guards swarmed the crowd to attempt to save the Princess. Shots rang out as they fired rifles into the crowd in an attempt to disperse them.

_Okay, time to leave. I'm not getting caught up in a riot,_ Blueblood thought.

Blueblood heard more screaming as he charged up his horn to teleport away. Just as he disappeared in a flash of light, he caught a glimpse of a green unicorn stallion stumbling away, clutching his bleeding chest and yelling in pain.

His teleport carried him all the way to his house, which was only about a quarter-mile away. Blueblood quickly ascended the stairway, grabbed his key, undid the lock and deadbolt, ran inside, and re-locked the door. He wished that he had some spare planks lying around so that he could board up his windows. His home was nice, and contained quite a few priceless vases and paintings. He feared that if the situation deteriorated any further, mobs of looters would likely have no problem taking advantage of the chaos and stealing his possessions.

Blueblood did not have a firearm to protect his belongings, though he was skilled enough in magic to at least put up a fight against any potential burglars and thieves. He sat down on his leather couch which faced his doorway. He found he could not sit and instead stood up, pacing around the room in nervous anticipation.

He looked out his window towards the Palace. He could see flames rising up in the distance, though he could not tell if this was from the royal palace or from some other building. He could hear shouting, glass-breaking, and occasional gunfire as the hours progressed. From his window he could see downtown Canterlot, and from what he could tell, the riot had spread to that area as well.

Thankfully, his house survived the night. The riot lasted into the early hours of the morning, by which time the Equestrian National Guard had shown up and restored order for the most part. The last sound of glass-breaking he heard was at four A.M., though he waited for about thirty minutes after that. Confident that house was safe, he went off to bed.

Blueblood cautiously ventured outside the next day, waiting until it was light out. He walked down the street in nervous anticipation, ready to flee if any potential looters assaulted him. The road was eerily abandoned, save for a few ponies sweeping up broken glass and beer bottles. Many unicorn and earth pony royal guards patrolled the street, carrying or levitating rifles in front of them. Pegasi royal guards hovered in the air, wielding sniper rifles.

_Celestia certainly means business,_ Blueblood thought.

A shot rang out as a would-be looter fell in his tracks in front of a jewelry store. He yelped as a brick fell out of his hooves and he fell to the ground.

"Trying to steal in front of a Royal Guard? You just might be too dumb to live," said a buff earth pony stallion who trained his rifle on the thief's head, "The next one's going through your skull."

The pony whimpered as he got up and scurried away, dripping blood from his side.

_Hmm. Well, I suppose I needn't worry too much about my safety_, Blueblood thought. He continued his stroll down the street to the Capitol. A few buildings had been completely burned, mostly in this area of town. Light smoke rose from these burned remains, though there were no flames that he could see.

The princess' castle itself was almost entirely destroyed. The once-grand spires and towers had crumpled from what Blueblood could discern was magical energy, as he could pick up traces of it in the air. It seemed that several unicorns had fired hundreds of powerful magical beams at the castle and demolished its grand façade. Broken glass surrounded the grounds; reds and greens and blues from once-intricate stained glass designs were littered all over the pavement.

Prince Blueblood wondered where Princess Celestia was. Was she still in her bedchambers, or had they been destroyed? What about Princess Luna? Was she even still alive? He seemed to recall her screaming, but maybe the pegasi guards arrived in time to save her.

He walked towards downtown Canterlot. Hopefully his publisher's office hadn't been destroyed. However, to his relief it appeared that the downtown area was mostly still intact, save for a few broken shop windows. His publisher's office also appeared to be completely intact.

"Prince Blueblood!" He turned around and saw a young mare approaching him.

"What is it?" he asked. He glanced at the mare. She was a saffron-coated unicorn who had a fire-engine-red mane with a yellow streak through it. She had bright, cyan eyes.

"You kicked some serious flank at that party last night. Good job saving everypony from Discord," she complimented, "You're probably the only rich socialite who could walk around town today without being mugged; you're a hero for what you did. Thanks again."

"You're quite welcome. And who might you be?"

"Name's Sunset Shimmer, duh!"

"Ah. Um, do I know you, or are you a fan of my books, or..."

"Oh, where are my manners? Yes, you know me. I actually used to attend Celestia's School For Gifted Unicorns back in the day. But I transferred to Hollow Shades University. It was several years ago, so I don't blame you for not remembering me. Can you believe that they made us take three friendship courses at Celestia's school? Thankfully, Hollow Shades didn't make me do that for a magic degree there. 'Friendship courses.' What a load of manure. Um, no offense, I know you were the dean there and all."

"No, it's quite alright. One of the many reasons that I quit as dean was because Princess Celestia wouldn't let me take those requirements out. I didn't care for the idea of friendship courses, either. So, I hope that you were safe during the riots last night."

"Yeah, I was safe," she said, and then glanced around furtively, and added with a grin, "I even participated in the riots, myself."

"You did?" Blueblood asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Oh yeah. I got myself this nice set of gold earrings, and a new wireless radio from some shop. Also, when the riot broke out, I got a couple of shots off at those horseflies who zoomed in to protect Luna," she said, using a derogatory remark for pegasi.

"Whatever happened to Princess Luna, anyway?"

"I don't know. I couldn't see what ultimately happened to her. There's been rumors floating around that she's dead, that the crowd killed her. Others said that she fled to Ponyville with Celestia. If she were dead, though, it would serve her right. I can't believe that Celestia and her hate unicorns. No, wait, actually I can, given the horrible education that they were trying to give me before I ditched Celestia's lame school. And this ridiculous tax on Canterlot, a majority-unicorn city. A forty percent tax on my earnings as a _waitress_? Give me a break!" She made sure to raise her voice again so that a passing earth pony guard on the sidewalk could hear her gripe about the tax.

When he didn't react, Sunset Shimmer turned to him and said, "Hope you're enjoying your new house and free food. You're welcome, dirt pony."

The earth pony guard simply continued on his way, not bothering to acknowledge Sunset Shimmer's presence.

"Hey! When someone provides you a service, you say THANK YOU, dirt pony! Learn some manners, and go back to Dodge Junction or whatever hellhole they called you in from!"

He stopped in his tracks, but did not turn around.

"Yeah, that's right. You get called into Canterlot after _one night_ of looting? How about they send you to the rest of Equestria, who's been looting Canterlot for _months_ now with this ivory tower tax! Go stand guard in Ponyville!" Sunset Shimmer practically screamed.

He simply turned around, looked at Sunset Shimmer, and slid the bolt on his bolt-action rifle, chambering a round. Sunset Shimmer got the message and quieted down. The guard turned back around and continued along his patrol route.

Though Blueblood could not condone theft or violence, he certainly understood why this mare was upset enough to have resorted to such things.

"Well, that was..."

"Sorry," said Sunset Shimmer, "I have a bit of a temper problem. I apologize."

Blueblood chuckled internally. Maybe she did need to take a friendship class or two. Or at least an anger management class.

"So, Miss Shimmer. I hope that you will stay safe and won't take the chance to resort to more violence or looting-"

"No, I won't. At least, not yet. Last night was just a precursor for what's to come."

"What do you mean?"

"I have a little group that I founded back in college, called Unistorm, that's still active."

"_Unistorm_?" Blueblood asked, chuckling.

"Yeah, a terrible pun, I know. But anyway, I founded this group at Hollow Shades University after I found out that I couldn't legally learn any of the restricted spells: dark magic, invisibility, what have you, unless I transferred back to Celestia's School. I was furious, because I hated her school! Um, no offense..."

"None taken," said Blueblood.

Sunset Shimmer continued, "So about three years ago, I founded this group with some like-minded unicorn students. We did some research into these spells, and taught ourselves several of them illegally, without the use of those scrolls that Celestia says we have to learn them from. There's a few spells that we've yet to master, but I'd like to think that we could go up against any graduate of her school in a magic duel and probably win, or at least tie."

"That's interesting," Blueblood said, "How many of you are there?"

"About thirty right now, but we're hoping to expand our membership considerably by launching a political party. And that's where you come in. Our political wing, the Unicorn Freedom Movement, has about eighty members, but we need somepony to represent us. We need someone to speak to the masses. Since you are a prince, a successful magical author, and a hero to the unicorn race, I can think of nopony better than you."

"What are the goals of the Unicorn Freedom Movement?" Prince Blueblood asked.

"We demand independence for Canterlot from Equestria, and we demand that Canterlot become a unicorn-only city. We aim to elect sympathetic unicorns to city positions, and they will petition Celestia for our peaceful secession from Equestria."

"Hmm, well being independent would stop the ivory tower tax," said Blueblood, "And it would also mean that we could loosen magic restrictions and improve magical education. So independence, I support."

"That's good," said Sunset Shimmer.

"But kicking out the non-unicorns? I'm not entirely opposed to the idea, but I would have to ask what purpose it serves, and how we would win elections when nearly a third of the city population is non-unicorns. I doubt they'd vote to be kicked out."

"If we let them stay in our city, how do we know that they won't outnumber us one day and then vote to tax us or restrict magic again? Non-unicorns breed like rabbits, after all. Think about it. Equestria is only 27% unicorn. If all else was equal, there would be a 33% unicorns. But there isn't."

"Well, non-unicorns do tend to live longer and have fewer miscarriages, so I can see them outnumbering us in the distant future, even in Canterlot. But still, how do we prevent them from voting against us?" asked Blueblood.

"That's where Unistorm comes in," said Sunset Shimmer, "It's quite easy to intimidate ponies to stay home from voting. It's also easy to destroy voting booths in earth pony neighborhoods. So, what do you say? Will you do it? With how angry Celestia has made the unicorns, we're sure to win!"

"Hmm. Well... it does sound like a party I can get behind, for the most part. Hmm..."

"Yes?" Sunset Shimmer asked, standing on the tips of her hooves and grinning from ear to ear.

"I'll do it. I will be the spokestallion for your group," Blueblood answered.

"Excellent!" said Sunset Shimmer.


	14. For Our Own Survival

"You need me to help you advertise the Unicorn Freedom Movement? I say, Blueblood, this is an interesting departure from your regular book series. What prompts such a move?"

Fancy Pants levitated a cup of tea up to his lips and took a sip, setting it back down on the desk in front of him. He sat in a large, leather-bound chair in his study. Rows of bookcases lined the walls, and a large bronze globe stood on his desk. Blueblood had contacted Fancy Pants regarding marketing this group and its first ever public meeting, and Fancy Pants invited the Prince over to his house for tea so he could discuss it.

Prince Blueblood took a sip of his own tea and responded, "Well, sir, you have probably heard about the recent terrorist incident at the Canterlot Events Center."

"Ah, yes, at the unicorn party. I had heard that there was going to be an event of some sort there. It sounded like fun; I would have gone, but I had a prior commitment that evening. Thank Celestia that I didn't go!"

"Well, she was actually the reason behind the attacks."

"She? What she? You mean Princess Celestia? Ah, you joker!" Fancy Pants laughed.

Blueblood responded, "I'm serious. Discord was the man who carried out the attack, but he stated that his motivation was because of what Celestia had said."

"And what was that, exactly?"

"She said that she distrusted unicorns. Discord played a tape of her saying that this is why she passed laws restricting magic, why her public schools never teach the basic spells that are in my book, why she took over Starswirl's School For Gifted Unicorns, why she and Luna raise the sun and moon instead of the unicorns, and why there are no unicorn-only cities as there are for the other two pony races. The tape ended with her saying that her rule would be a lot easier if the unicorns were gone, and Discord responded by saying that he was simply carrying out her goal."

Fancy Pants blinked a few times, his jaw dropping. He responded, "What? Why, but… are you sure the recording is genuine and not a forgery, a product of Discord's strange and powerful magic?"

Blueblood said, "I don't know; I'm not an audio expert. But all of the things that the recording said, whether it was Celestia who said them or Discord who forged them, are true. It's true that there are no unicorn cities, that she and Luna raise the sun and moon instead of the unicorns. It's true that magical education is lacking in this country; that's how I've sold so many books! It's also true that there are laws against certain sorts of magic. Most ponies don't know about the laws since they will never have need of such powerful spells, but the laws exist."

Fancy Pants straightened his monocle and said, "Well, I am going to try and play devil's advocate here. What if Celestia really doesn't distrust unicorns, and all of those things are just coincidences, and Discord has noticed them and has decided to try and sow, well, _discord_ among the population by targeting unicorns as he did? Then you'd be falling right into his trap."

"So what? Maybe discord DOES need to be sown. Why do the earth ponies get Appaloosa and Dodge Junction, why do the Pegasi get Cloudsdale and Los Pegasus, and the unicorns get nothing? Why are there no laws against pegasi using certain flight maneuvers such as the sonic rainboom or tornadoes, or against earth ponies taming certain sorts of dangerous beasts such as dragons? What about the ivory tower tax?"

Fancy Pants thought about this for a moment, and responded, "I don't know. I guess I cannot explain it. Perhaps the recording is right, and Celestia really does distrust unicorns. In which case, as a unicorn, I am naturally appalled. I've never given anypony any reason to distrust me. If my mere _existence_ as who I am offends somepony, royalty included, they should know I have as much right to exist as they do."

Blueblood smiled. "So THAT is why you must help me market the Unicorn Freedom Movement to the masses of Canterlot: for our own survival. I trust that you can do it; you have done miracles marketing my book to the masses."

"Hmm... This is a peaceful group, yes? From what you've told me about this Sunset Shimmer character, she seems to be somewhat of a young flame. She sounds like she has a lot of passion, but of a violent nature. And Unistorm may get into legal trouble for illegally learning those restricted spells. You can't have the UFM be associated with a terrorist group and expect me to market it."

Blueblood paused for a moment, and then lit up with an idea, saying, "The Unicorn Freedom Movement will be my project, and Unistorm will be hers. I will retain complete control over UFM. Sunset Shimmer's only role will be advisory; she will have no power within the organization. Unistorm will be completely separate from us. If they do run into legal trouble, the UFM will be safe."

"Hmm... well, normally I would be inclined to say no... BUT. You and I have had a profitable partnership for over a year now. You have helped me make a lot of money from those books, Prince Blueblood. I trust your judgment regarding this group. All I have to say is, don't let Unistorm drag your legitimate political wing down. Do this for me, and I will market the Unicorn Freedom Movement... with an added risk premium, of course. I do trust you to try and keep Unistorm under control, but I don't trust them to keep themselves under control."

"I will pay you double what I normally would for marketing," said Blueblood.

"Alright, then, you've convinced me. But this discussion never occurred. If Unistorm goes and smashes up some earth pony shop or kills somepony, they are not affiliated with me, and I had no idea, and I am of course shocked and outraged at such barbarism and will drop the Unicorn Freedom Movement like a lead balloon."

"Agreed," said Blueblood, and they shook hooves.

"So I have a marketing effort underway for the Unicorn Freedom Movement. We will have political ads on the air within the week," Prince Blueblood said. He had met Sunset Shimmer in a small cafe on the edge of town. They were seated off in the corner, right next to the window, where they could speak without being overheard.

"Excellent! When will you be speaking?"

"I will not be speaking until certain conditions are met."

"Which are?" Sunset Shimmer asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Unistorm must completely disassociate itself from the Unicorn Freedom Movement. And you, as the leader of Unistorm, can not also lead the UFM. You must leave that task to me."

"What? But why?" she asked, jaw dropping, "The UFM is our political wing! It's our arm for conducting legitimate activity!"

"Exactly. If ponies find out that you are associated in any way, and then it comes to light that you've used dangerous magic or have participated in the riots, then that will come back to harm the UFM. Legally at least, the two entities may not maintain any contact."

"But most of the members of the UFM are also in Unistorm," Sunset Shimmer pointed out.

"Well, that's fine. As long as they don't wear any Unistorm... uh, what is it that you wear?"

"Usually, just all grey robes and a grey, pointed wizard hat over our horns."

"Yes, as long as they don't wear those to any UFM meetings, as long as they never talk about Unistorm, then it's fine. You are also welcome to attend, but since you lead Unistorm, you may not have any official positions in the UFM."

"Well... okay, I guess. I mean, you are doing us a solid by speaking for us."

"Good. And in return for this, when the UFM is elected into office, we will legalize Unistorm and allow your members to hold offices. Unfortunately though, until we can change the law, you're still a terrorist group. But now that we have reached an understanding that UFM refuses to be affiliated with any terrorist groups, I will make a public recruiting speech for UFM in Canterlot Square in the next week."

"Sounds like a plan," Sunset Shimmer said, and they shook hooves.

Blueblood twiddled his bow-tie, straightening it in apprehension. He floated a mirror in front of himself as he combed back his hair.

_Goodness me, my hair is so tousled! How can I expect to make a good impression if every last strand isn't in its proper place and-_

"Blueblood, no one is paying attention to your hair," said Sunset Shimmer, as if reading his mind, "They're paying attention to what you have to SAY. Now go stand on that stage and give 'em hell!"

Blueblood was standing behind a large wooden stage that had been constructed in Royal Square, one of the main plazas of the town. He could hear the murmurs and excited cheers of the crowd.

"Alright. So, are we good to speak, then?"

"Yes, it's time. Come on," she said, pushing him up the stairs.

Blueblood put his hoof over his eyes as the sun shone directly down on them. The sounds of shrieking and hollering pierced his ears as his eyes adjusted to the brightness and he saw a crowd of thousands of ponies standing there. His heart raced in apprehension as he foated the microphone over to himself, and spoke.

"Welcome, fillies and gentlecolts. Thank you for taking interest in the Unicorn Freedom Movement."

The crowd cheered. Mares jumped up and down, hysterically. Blueblood thought he saw one faint at the sight of him.

"BLUEBLOOD! BLUEBLOOD! BLUEBLOOD!" the crowd cheered.

"Thank you, thank you," he said as the crowd quieted down, "Now, for those of you who are unfamiliar with us: we are a political party which seeks two aims. One, we seek to gain independence for Canterlot from Equestria. Two, we seek to make Canterlot a unicorns-only city."

There were murmurs in the crowd, some confused.

"Now, you may ask why we have these goals. The first goal of independence should be obvious. Princess Celestia has robbed the citizens of this city blind to pay for the detestation wrought by Discord in the other cities. Never mind that Discord committed a massacre _here_ as well. No, the ivory tower tax on Canterlot remains."

Boos and hisses rose from the crowd.

"Yes, and we are here to channel our anger into the constructive impetus for change. Celestia obviously dislikes Canterlot for a reason. And what is that reason? For those of you who attended Discord's party, the answer is clear: because Canterlot is the only majority-unicorn city, and she distrusts unicorns. Thus, the reason for our second goal. We seek to provide a shelter for all unicorns in Equestria. Here, they can escape her tyranny, mistrust, and greed. Within Canterlot's walls, they will be free to learn and practice magic as they see fit; they will never be distrusted or looked down on, but rather appreciated and held up as the superior race of pony that they are."

Blueblood heard many cheers at this, but noticed puzzled looks among some of the ponies gathered in the crowd. Undeterred, he continued.

"Now, some of you raise your eyebrows at the word 'superior.' I admit that supremacy may be a hard concept to wrap your head around—you have been taught to love everypony as 'equal' since you have been old enough to walk—but you must take pride in yourself and learn to embrace what makes you superior, or you risk being exploited by your lessers. We must take pride in who we are as a race, for our own survival. For the only alternative to pride is slavery and death. Only the philosophy of supremacy brings survival; the philosophy of so-called 'equality' brings death.

"As we have seen from recent events, the very ponies who claim to care for you are just as content to bleed you dry for their own ends and sell you into slavery under the banner of 'equality.' As unicorns, we must take pride in who we are and acknowledge the fact of our supremacy, or we risk slavery, death, and ultimately... extinction as a race. There is no middle ground. And I am not simply talking about death metaphorically; I mean that there are those out there who will seek to kill us simply because they view us and our superiority as a threat to them, even where no threat exists. They will not accept 'equal,' for their definition of equal does not, and can never allow unicorns to exist.

"We have seen such murderous tendencies on display for years. From the massacre at Celestia's School For Gifted Unicorns a decade ago, to the massacre committed by Discord a week ago in this very city, if we as unicorns do not stand up, these events will become more and more frequent until our race is gone. Those who do not die will be bled dry by this ivory tower tax, which was passed in the name of 'equality.' That is why we must take pride, reject equality, and embrace supremacy: for our own survival.

"But part of this pride is questioning. Unquestioned pride is nothing more than arrogance, the same sort on display by those who exploit us. So ask yourself, _why_ are the unicorns superior? I will tell you. First, to answer that question, ask yourself another question: What do you fear more, the lynx or the lion? The lion, of course, because he is above the lynx in every respect. He is smarter, faster, larger, and more powerful than the lion. When you are in the jungle, you take precautions against the lion, and you simply ignore the lynx.

"Celestia fears us more than the other two pony races because we are more powerful, intelligent, versatile, and evolutionarily advanced than the other two pony races. That is why she has instituted policies against our race which have only recently come to light. Notice how she never sought to contain the pegasi or the earth ponies through secret laws. What does this tell you? We are the lions; they are the lynxes.

"The earth ponies have no trouble placing farm animals such as sheep and cows in pens, and demanding that they produce milk and wool year after year for no pay. They do this because they are superior in intellect and strength to the farm animals. I am not arguing for anything even that extreme in terms of unicorns' relationship to the earth ponies and pegasi; I do not advocate for slavery. I advocate for freedom and independence, because right now the non-unicorns have this same relationship with us as they do with cattle. They take our money for nothing in return.

"They tax our city of Canterlot, the only majority-unicorn city in Equestria, to death, through their Ivory Tower Tax. The tax which only is imposed in Canterlot, ostensibly meant to help areas of Equestria recently ravaged by Discord. What do we get in return for this tax? Nothing. And read between the lines. Who sits in an ivory tower who is not superior to the one below? No one. Clearly, ivory towers are for those above. And what ivory tower in particular makes us as unicorns superior? The ivory towers which grow from your very foreheads: your horns, the source of your magic.

"And what of this magic? I've written many books on the subject. In this speech, I have addressed the_effects_ of our supremacy, now I shall address the _cause_ of it: magic. Magic allows us, as a race, to do nearly anything. Through magic, we can move distant planets and stars which the pegasi could never reach, build great machines with complex and interconnected mechanisms which hooves and mouths could never construct, communicate with thoughts and ideas rather than words, and more importantly: live free of the other two races. And that, of course, is the cause for which you are all gathered today.

"How, you may ask, can we hope to live free of the other two races when we need them? But the question is improper. We can grow crops and harvest them with the aid of machinery. We can move the clouds and manage the weather with magic. We do not need _them_, they need US. They need us to construct the latest gadgets for them, to cast spells for them, and if it were not for Celestia, they would need us to raise the sun and moon as well, just as they did long ago.

"So now you know why you are superior: your magic. And now you know what this superiority, when gone unacknowledged, leads to: exploitation under the banner of 'equality.' Equality is a false notion; we must live alone and acknowledge our superiority in our relation to the other races. We must do so for our own survival. Thank you."

Blueblood waited for a few seconds in nervous apprehension. How would they take it? This was a new notion, after-

"WOOOOOOOOOOOOOH!" the crowd burst into a roaring applause. Blueblood smiled. They were taking his message exactly as they should.

Prince Blueblood continued having weekly rallies in the Royal Square in Canterlot, attracting larger and larger crowds each time. He gave speech after speech about independence and unicorns supremacy, and the crowds loved him. He put his name on the ballot for the mayoral elections in Canterlot, and several of the political polls favored him to win when the election was held two months away in November.

However, not all of the ponies in Canterlot were happy about this. A few weeks after Blueblood's first speech, Princess Celestia sat at her desk in her chambers, head buried in her hooves, as she sighed.

"Sister? You called for me?" said Luna as she walked through the grand oak doors. Celestia swiveled in her leather office chair to meet her sister.

"Yes, sit down, Luna. I need your advice. Something must be done regarding Blueblood," said Princess Celestia, "He is fomenting hatred and division in the population. We can't have a mayor of our nation's capital who no longer wants it to be the nation's capital!"

"But Sister, you said that you wished to be popular with the masses."

"That I do, but I also wish to keep Equestria in one piece while doing so. We must stop this movement in its tracks before they tear this nation apart."

"But how shall we do that? Shall we ban the party?"

"No, we won't do that. Tyrants ban parties, and I am not a tyrant. We will take another measure."

"But, but what?"

"I don't quite know yet, sister."

Suddenly, an orange pegasus stallion entered the room, bowed, and said, "Princess, the daily report."

"Thank you, Flash Sentry," she said as he gave her a stack of papers. She asked, "Anything of note?"

"We've been dealing with security for these massive unicorn rallies to make sure that none of them get out of hoof. They have been mostly peaceful, though there have been a few issues. Today, for instance, a rowdy attendee at a UFM event beat up a passing earth pony. The attacker was wearing grey robes of some kind. Thankfully, we placed the stallion under arrest."

"Hmm. Well, Blueblood certainly is fomenting hatred," said Princess Luna.

"Wait a minute... Flash. Is fomenting hatred a crime?" Celestia asked.

"Not as such, but if such hatred could be considered an incitement to _violence_, then yes," Flash answered.

"Ah. Well, we have our answer, then."

"What do you mean, Sister?" asked Luna.

"Flash Sentry," said Princess Celestia, pointing her hoof towards the stallion, "Place Prince Blueblood under house arrest. When he is secure, come to me. I wish to speak to him."


	15. Force and Coercion

Prince Blueblood sat on his recliner in his living room, reading a book. Suddenly, he was interrupted by a knock on the door. He took off his reading glasses and set them on the coffee table, and walked over to answer. Flash Sentry and six other royal guards stood at the door: two pegasi, two unicorns, and two earth ponies. All were equipped with bolt-action rifles.

"Prince Blueblood?" Flash Sentry asked.

"Yes?" he replied.

"I am afraid that I must place you under house arrest, beginning immediately."

Blueblood's eyebrows raised at this. He asked, "For what, exactly?"

"You've been encouraging violence, which is against the law. I can't let you leave; the Princess wants to speak to you."

Prince Blueblood said, "Do you have an arrest warrant?"

"No, this is under the Princess' direct orders."

"I see," Blueblood rolled his eyes.

"We will just be standing guard outside until the Princess comes," said Sentry.

"You do that," said Blueblood, slamming the door in his face. Blueblood went into his study and over to his desk. However, he didn't scream, he didn't rage, and he didn't pout; he simply chuckled. He sat down, took a quill in his magic, and began to write a new book.

Flash Sentry knocked on the grand oak doors leading to the throne room. The doors swung open as a royal guard unlatched the lock with his magic.

Princess Luna sat on the throne, surrounded by a legion of guards. Her throne was behind a pane of bulletproof glass. Security had been tightened significantly since the attempt on her life by the angry mob.

"Princess Luna," said Flash Sentry, bowing, "I wish to speak with your sister."

"She is ill and sick in bed," said Princess Luna, hanging her head low.

"I see. She told me to hold Prince Blueblood under house arrest until she could come and speak with him personally. Shall I let him go, or shall I keep him under arrest?"

"You should keep him under arrest. Princess Celestia views this as an important conversation. Since she knows Prince Blueblood quite well, she wants to have the discussion with him personally. After that, he will be free to go and take or ignore her advice as he sees fit. However, she is unable to get out of bed at the moment."

"What was the conversation to be about?"

"About the grave mistake that he is making in attempting to secede from Equestria, and his error in assuming that unicorns are somehow superior to other pony races," said Princess Luna, "Though I am sure that she could articulate it far better than I could. Speaking has never been my strong suit."

"I see. Well, our guard detail will keep Blueblood's house under guard until the Princess can make it." Sentry bowed and exited the room, flying back towards Blueblood's house.

Five days had passed, and the Princess had yet to come and speak to Blueblood. By day three, he had suspected that the whole "Princess wants to talk" story was simply a ruse, and that she had no intention of speaking with him whatsoever. After all, if she could hold him in his house indefinitely with no formal charges, then that would keep him from speaking and rallying crowds, which could cost him the mayoral election, which was just two weeks away. That seemed to Blueblood like it was her plan, even though in reality it wasn't: her plan to attempt to mediate the situation was cut short by her progressively-worsening illness.

By day five, a large crowd had gathered outside of the royal palace demanding to see Prince Blueblood. Princess Celestia was far too ill to even climb out of bed and address the crowd.

Meanwhile, Prince Blueblood sat in his study, busily writing a new book. He had finished most of the book proper, now he worked on the foreword.

_Force and Coercion_

_By: Fritz Blueblood_

_FOREWORD: This is the first non-magical book I have ever written, but I believe it is the most important one. It is the summation of all of my work thus far in education about magic, and my work in advocating for unicorn freedom. This book will summarize everything that I believe is wrong with Celestia's administration, and everything I believe is right about the unicorn race as well as unicorn self-determination and self-governance._

_Never in my life have I advocated force, never have I advocated coercion. The title refers to the force and coercion which has been used by others against me. I have never participated in violence. The only time I have ever raised a hoof against another was against Discord and his changeling minions, but that was in self-defense, and self-defense versus aggression is a key distinction to make. I have never been aggressive._

_Some have committed acts of aggression and violence under my name and under the Unicorn Freedom Movement banner. I do not support or condone such behavior. I do not condone force or coercion to achieve my aims._

_I write this book to you as a prisoner in my own home. I am being held here on no formal charges, by order of the Princess herself. I have been in my home now for five days. I believe the arrest is phony and simply meant to keep me from going out and speaking my mind._

_Supposedly, I am being held here for encouraging violence, when I have never done any such thing. As I write this, there are guards surrounding every corner of my house, ensuring that I do not escape. They wield rifles which I presume are for me if I attempt to escape. How ironic that I am being held on false charges of using force and coercion to convince ponies that I am right, when the Princess is preventing me from leaving my home by ACTUAL force and coercion, which her laws claim is wrong. I agree, they are wrong, which is why I do not use them._

_By what right does she do this to me? She punishes me for a crime I did not commit and have not been charged with. She claims to not be a tyrant, yet every action she has taken against me and the unicorn race seems to confirm this fact that she so vehemently denies. She suppresses our free speech, our freedom of habeas corpus, our freedom to use magic, our freedom of association, our freedom to keep the majority of the money that we earn._

_We deserve self-determination and the ability to make our own laws, because we are superior to those who incorrectly claim to rule us. As I will elucidate in this book, their pretensions to power are comical: the inmates are running the asylum._

_-Prince Fritz Blueblood, Ph.D."_

Blueblood sat his quill down, his magic tired from hours and hours of writing. He was finally done with his book. He smiled looking at the thick stack of paper. It was the best thing he had ever written, he thought.

The Prince got up from his chair, stretching his limbs.

_Now what shall I do?_ he thought. _Who knows how much longer I will have to stay here, and I am completely bored. Perhaps I could read._

Blueblood sat down in his recliner and grabbed a book. He read for about five minutes, but grew bored and set it back onto his shelf.

_I need contact with other ponies. I've been alone for five days._

"Hmm..." he said aloud, and then his eyes widened as his face lit up with an idea. He could perhaps socialize with the guards. He walked over to his front door, opened it, and stepped out onto his porch. He was faced by Flash Sentry, who stood guard over the steps leading up to his porch.

Sentry simply stared at Blueblood with a blank look on his face.

"Well, are you going to come in, or just stand there?" Blueblood asked, smiling.

"Huh?"

"If you are going to be monitoring my house to ensure that I don't leave, you could at least come in and keep me company. I figure you are tiring from standing in one place all day."

"Uh... sure," said Flash Sentry, motioning to a unicorn guard to take his place at the front steps. Walking through Blueblood's door, he said, "You know, I wouldn't have expected you to be this... uh..."

"What, welcoming? Why would you assume that?"

"Well, I'm a pegasus, after all," said Sentry, closing the door behind him and dusting his hooves off on Blueblood's doormat.

"Your assumption that I would not treat you with any consideration is wrong. Please, take a seat."

Flash Sentry sat on Blueblood's leather couch, placing his rifle next to him, within hoof's reach.

"Would you like a drink, Mister..."

"Sentry. And cup of coffee, if you have it.

"I do."

Blueblood walked into his kitchen, which was joined to his living room by an open entryway, and began preparing a pot of coffee.

While in the kitchen, he spoke towards Sentry through the entryway, "I share my message with all who will listen, including the lesser races. I may treat you and other pegasi with _lesser_ consideration, Mister Sentry, but not _zero_ consideration. I don't hold slaves like cattle or sheep, giving no care to their welfare at all. I am no earth pony."

Sentry grimaced, and said, "See, and that's the problem. That sort of divisive hate speech is exactly the reason that the Princess ordered me to keep an eye on you."

Blueblood walked back into the living room as the coffee was brewing. "Hate speech? When have I ever said that I hated anypony? I have invited you into my home and made you coffee, have I not? Even when you have held me prisoner in my own home for a week with no warrant and no habeas corpus. If what I've shown you is hate, then hell is a grand hotel."

"Your hate speech isn't what you are under arrest for. Apparently some ponies have been inspired to violence from hearing your words—"

"I do not preach violence, mister Sentry. If anypony has taken my words to heart and then decided to commit acts of violence, those violent acts came from within themselves. They should be punished, not I."

"That's not how the law sees it. The law sees ponies who've committed acts of violence after hearing your words, and determines that you are responsible for the violence."

"Oh, the law? That's adorable. I ask, when have Celestia's laws ever relied on logic?"

Flash Sentry paused for a moment, and responded, "Always."

"Oh? What of, for instance, the ivory tower tax on Canterlot?"

"It's to spread the concentrated wealth from here to cities which need it."

"And Canterlot _doesn't_ need it? Who are you and the law to determine who needs it? I would think that after Discord's massacre, after the riots, after the economic devastation wrought by this very tax, Canterlot now needs wealth as much as any other city. The goal of the tax, as I recall, is to 'spread the suffering,' and it has certainly done exactly as intended. But rather than making other cities suffer as little as Canterlot, it has made Canterlot suffer as much as the other cities."

"The intent of the law was good; it simply hasn't had the right effect."

"Then it's a bad, illogical law. The road to hell is paved with good intentions. The ivory tower tax was passed by the same mentally deficient ponies who call a stallion who has never lifted a hoof in aggression to wantonly harm another 'violent.' It has a tenuous, disjointed justification which dares to call itself 'logic' but is nothing more than blind, dumb tyranny. There will soon come a time when the laws are made by ponies who are superior in intellect, strength, and mental capacity to the current administration. We shall all be better off for it. We will not share suffering and stupidity, we will share only strength and wisdom."

Flash Sentry paused for a few moments, considering Blueblood's statements. He finally responded, "I didn't come to your house to argue politics with you, Prince Blueblood. I only came here to keep you under guard. I don't make the laws; I only enforce them."

"Ah, so you tacitly acknowledge that your argument and your system of laws has no merit. I see. You say that you did not come here to discuss politics, yet your very justification of holding me here is the political system that I have logically demolished over the course of five minutes. Go back to the princess and let me leave my house."

"You can't order me!" said Flash Sentry, standing up, grabbing his rifle, and adopting an aggressive stance.

"Sit back down, young stallion; your testosterone is at dangerously high levels," said Blueblood as the coffee machine beeped, indicating that the cup was done.

Flash followed Blueblood into the kitchen, rifle in tow. Blueblood turned around and saw Sentry watch him as he approached the coffee pot.

Blueblood let out a hearty laugh, and then scoffed. "What, Mister Sentry, are you worried that I'll poison you or something? Fine, let me ease your paranoia."

Blueblood levitated two coffee cups over to Flash Sentry so that he could see that there was nothing already in them, and poured the coffee in them. He then levitated one to his own lips, and took a sip.

"Now we may drink, yes?"

"Yes."

Blueblood and Flash Sentry walked back into the living room, sitting back in their chairs. Sentry set his rifle down next to him on the couch.

"So, Mr. Sentry, you view me as violent, eh?"

"...Well, maybe not personally, but the law—"

"Your actions betray your suspicion of me. You had to watch me pour your coffee out of some fear I might poison you. You have clutched your rifle close to you ever since you have entered my home, like a baby might clutch a blanket. You personally view me as violent. Admit it."

After a moment, Sentry responded with, "Yes."

"And so does the law, apparently?"

"Yes."

"Well, in reality, I am not violent in the slightest, and I have never raised my own hooves or horn to attack another pony in aggression. The only time I have ever attacked another living creature was Discord and the changelings, and that was in self-defense. Other ponies who follow me may condone violence or perpetrate it themselves, but I do not, and I frown on such behavior.

"That is reality, though, but apparently the law does not concern itself with little things like facts. And apparently, neither do you, Mister Sentry. If you and the law already see me as violent, and there's nothing I can do to convince you otherwise, why shouldn't I go ahead and _actually_ use violence to achieve my aims? Might as well, if I'm going to be punished for it anyway. I am a powerful, magically-trained unicorn, and I have many others who would be willing to rally to my side in a coup of Canterlot if we so desired. We would kill any who oppose us, and I can assure you that I would not lose a minute's sleep over it.

"So, please, give me a good reason why I shouldn't. What's stopping me? The law already views me as a monster, even though I have done nothing wrong. If I'm already damned in your eyes, why not do what I'm damned for? Why should I not kill you right now where you sit?"

Sentry simply gazed at Blueblood with a blank stare.

"When you are asked a question, young stallion, it is customary to give a response. Please answer my question."

In the background, they both heard many dozens of ponies yelling and shouting.

"Free Blueblood! Free Blueblood!" Evidently, some of the ponies had figured out that Blueblood was being held under house arrest. Blueblood grinned at Sentry.

Finally, Sentry responded, "You _are_ violent, though. You have encouraged others to violence. By proxy, you are a violent stallion; whether or not you have raised your own hooves in violence is irrelevant."

Blueblood scowled, breathing heavily as rage flowed through his veins. After a moment, he sat up in his chair, a blank expression on his face, and said flatly, "Well, that's settled then."

In a flash of light, Prince Blueblood disappeared from off of his recliner and appeared in front of Flash Sentry. Sentry reached over to his rifle, but Blueblood knocked it from his grasp with his hoof. A blue glow enveloped Sentry as Blueblood grabbed him with his magic.

A devious smile spread over Blueblood's face.

"You realize I could snap your neck right now, pegasus? You realize I could tear your wings from your back? I could make you die a slow, painful death."

Sentry opened his mouth to scream, but Blueblood tightened his jaw shut with his telekinesis.

"After all, I am so violent that Celestia and her state sees fit to put me under house arrest for a week with no charges. I laugh at these restrictions, of course, as I am a unicorn and it is impossible to contain me without cutting off my horn. I could have escaped from my home at any moment over the past week. But apparently I am so violent that you tremble in fear at a simple gesture of hospitality such as offering you a drink or a place to sit and rest your tired hooves. Yes, I am a violent pony, and I will strike you down where you stand. I will confirm your suspicions."

"MMMPH!" Sentry mumbled.

"Unless, of course, I am not violent, and you have made a mistake in placing me under arrest. In which case, I would let you free of my magical grasp, and you would in turn tell your guards to release me from house arrest. Otherwise, though, if your law is correct and I really am violent, I shall kill you mercilessly and painfully. So, am I violent and you are right, in which case I shall kill you, or am I peaceful and you are wrong, in which case I will not hurt you and you will let me go?"

"You're not violent," mumbled Sentry.

"I'm sorry, what was that? I couldn't quite hear you," said Blueblood.

"You're not violent!"

Sentry fell back to the floor with a thud.

"That's better. Now, am I free to go?" Blueblood asked.

"...Yes. I'll tell the others that you're no longer under house arrest," said Sentry, shaking.

"Excellent. Now get out of my house."

Flash Sentry scurried towards the door, running into the yard. Blueblood thought at first that he might be telling the guards what had happened to him, but apparently he wouldn't. All six guards gathered around Sentry, and they left, walking back up the street towards Celestia's palace.

_Excellent,_ thought Blueblood.

"Free Blueblood! Free Blueblood! Free Blueblood!" another crowd shouted; they were gathered in the garden in front of Princess Celestia's palace. She could not hear the crowd's chanting, since her room had been destroyed in the arson attack against the palace, and she was sleeping in an intact area of the palace.

Suddenly, a white light flashed and Blueblood stood atop the charred balcony which had once led the way into Celestia's bedroom.

The crowd cheered a thunderous applause as he took a bow.

"Fillies and gentlecolts, I am back! The Princess erroneously held me under house arrest for advocating acts of violence!"

The crowd booed.

"That's right, I have never done or advocated such a thing! Thankfully, the royal guard has seen the error of their ways and have released me."

The crowd cheered.

"Just one more example of why Celestia and her sister need to leave Canterlot! They have demonstrated once again their incompetence in ruling! Canterlot for the unicorns! In just two short weeks, we will vote for our independence!"

The crowd cheered.

"Unicorns! Unicorns! Unicorns! Unicorns!" the crowd chanted, louder than before, some using voice amplification spells.

The Princess lay in her chambers and heard the din from the other side of the palace. She was joined by Flash Sentry and Luna, who stood by her bedside.

"I'm sorry, Princess. H-he j-just picked me up and threatened to k-kill me if I didn't let him go. There was an angry mob coming and..." he stumbled over his words, afraid that the Princess would punish him.

"That's alright..." she gasped for air, struggling to form words, "I would've released... him soon anyways. This is all my own fault..."

"Do not say such a thing, sister!" said Luna.

"No... if I hadn't... feared the unicorns, if I'd treated them with... trust... they would've never thought to secede... It was my own fear which brought this about... I just wanted to keep peace in Equestria... stop them using dangerous spells... but my own fear has enraged them..."

"But the unicorns are dangerous! We've seen it!" said Flash Sentry, "What about the riots? What about ponies like Sombra?"

"The riots would never have... happened without my fear and mistrust. Sombra was a lone wolf... The thing which I have greatly feared has come upon me... Please, forgive me..."

With that, her eyes closed, never to open again. Sentry bowed and shuffled out of the room. Luna hung her head low, crying tears for the loss of her sister.


	16. Gaining In The Polls

**Canterlot, November 2014**

The streets of Canterlot were somber and melancholy as a black hearse carriage traveled down the main street of town. Ponies from all over Equestria gathered around. Many wore black veils and cried tears into hoofkerchiefs.

Most of the unicorns gathered on the side of the road were respectful enough. A few of them cheered as the hearse passed, despite the frowns and grimaces from the others gathered in the crowd.

The fact that Princess Celestia had been dying had been an open secret. Though she had died without leaving a public announcement—she had expected to live at least a year longer and make her announcement in early 2015—it was hardly a surprise to many ponies. The Equestrians had seen less and less of their beloved princess over the last two years, as she had attended fewer and fewer royal events. At the same time, Celestia had appointed a new princess for the first time in living memory. It didn't take a genius to figure out that something was wrong.

Prince Blueblood attended the funeral procession and the burial itself out of respect. A small, select group of ponies sat in the royal garden where Celestia was to be buried. Blueblood sat in the very front row, a few feet in front of a podium where Princess Luna stood, wearing a black veil.

The Princess of the Night spoke, "My sister, Princess Celestia, was a great mare. She kept Equestria in peace and harmony for two millennia. She raised the sun for 1,300 years, and raised both the sun and moon for 1,000 of that. She helped me to see the error of my ways when I rebelled against her and became nightmare m-moon..." she stopped, sobbing, wiping at her eyes with a tissue.

She continued, "Twilight Sparkle and I will honor her memory by continuing the same laws and policies which she instituted. We will do what she would have wanted, to be happy even in her absence and rule her kingdom in peace and prosperity. Thank you."

Twilight Sparkle was next, walking up to the podium and giving a brief speech. She was surrounded by royal guards; evidently they did not want a repeat assault on Twilight by any would be assassins who believed that she was involved in Discord's gassing attack.

"Princess Celestia was the wisest and most understanding pony that I ever knew," she said through tears, "She taught me about magic, and she taught me the value of friendship. She even made me into an alicorn for the purpose of taking over for her when she died. I can only hope to be half the pony that she was."

After Twilight finished her speech, the ponies in the crowd lined up to pay their final respects. Princess Celestia's coffin was lowered into the ground. After a few more words from other ponies, after more tears were shed, the funeral goers filed out of the gates to the garden.

Since Prince Blueblood had a seat in the front, he was one of the last ponies to leave. He glanced over at one of the unicorns standing guard near the gates and noticed that, rather than the blank look which guards normally wore, this guard smiled at him.

"Good day," said Blueblood, passing him by.

"Good day to you too, Prince Blueblood," said the dark grey-coated unicorn stallion.

"Ah, so you know my name," said Blueblood, stopping as the last of the guests left, "And you are?"

"I'm just a sergeant, and I heard about your arrest," said the Sergeant as the last guest walked out of the gates.

The sergeant glanced around himself, saw that nopony was listening, and then said, "A lot of us royal guards heard about it. I for one think that it was outrageous. If I was in a more senior position, I would have protested Celestia's order and definitely would have let you go a lot sooner. But unfortunately, I'm just a staff sergeant: an enlisted stallion. The ponies who give the orders are the officers; they're yes-pony officers the likes of Flash Sentry." He rolled his eyes after saying the young pegasus' name.

"Flash Sentry? Ah yes, I put the fear of Celestia into him for sure—" Blueblood glanced back at the coffin, remembering whose funeral he was at, and then added, "Can we still say that, now that she's gone? Or should it be 'fear of _Luna_?'"

"Why not say fear of Blueblood?" said the Sergeant, chuckling.

"Well, I certainly hope to be the leader of Canterlot as its own independent nation. But I need the support of a lot more ponies. I also would of course need the support of the city guards and royal guards. After all, they would end up comprising our nation's armed forces."

"You'd have my support," said the Sergeant, "And the support of the stallions at my command. Especially if it means that we get new positions in a new military. But you need the support of the officers to really get anything done in the event that it comes to a coup. You'd certainly need their votes, given that some 20% of ponies in Canterlot are royal guard stationed here to guard the palace, or stationed at the barracks. Canterlot is a military town for sure.

"Perhaps you could get the support of some of the other unicorns on the guard. Maybe you could come to the barracks and give one of those rousing speeches you're so famous for. That might win a few more ponies over to your side."

"You think so?" Blueblood raised an eyebrow.

"Oh, absolutely. These guys live to be given orders and get pumped up by speeches. Just give a few speeches at the barracks, and then tailor them to military-minded ponies. If there's one thing that military ponies and civilians both love, it's when you talk up the armed forces."

"Hmm," said Blueblood, scratching his chin with his hoof, "Well, it's not like I have anything to lose by it."

After his arrest, Blueblood had figured that the royal guard was a lost cause. But hearing this Sergeant who actually supported him gave him hope that perhaps the guard was not an entirely lost cause.

"Exactly, you have nothing to lose," said the Sergeant.

"What about the other races on the guard? What about the pegasi and earth ponies?" Prince Blueblood asked.

"Do you think they'd care?" the Sergeant responded, "Remember, most of them live someplace else and are simply stationed here in Canterlot. This isn't their home. All that you winning would mean for them is just a change of scenery. Whereas for the unicorns, it could mean new positions in the military of a newly-independent nation. Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if some of the pegasi and earth ponies vote for you just so that the princesses have to relocate the capital to, say, Ponyville or Cloudsdale. That means they'd get to be stationed closer to their families."

Prince Blueblood chuckled. He never thought that a non-unicorn would ever be motivated to vote for him in a million years. But perhaps the royal guard was a source that he could tap.

"Despite my unfair and arbitrary arrest last week, which I am sure that you are aware of, I understand that the Royal Guard serves a valuable effort in keeping law and order in this city and in Equestria in general. The charges levied against me were false, but I understand that those orders came from higher up the chain from Celestia, who, though she may rest in peace, simply did not understand how a just and fair legal system works. I fear that Princess Luna and Twilight, who have dedicated themselves to continuing her policies, are no better. That is why I have come to appeal to you directly."

Prince Blueblood stood on a podium at one of the events rooms of the barracks. Despite Blueblood's prior arrest record, Fancy Pants had pulled some strings and gotten him a speaking position.

"I come to you today not as a prince, not as an author, not as a magical expert, but simply as a pony who supports the efforts of our guard stallions and mares in uniform. If elected to office, I will make Canterlot an independent nation, but I will not forget the valiant efforts on behalf of the guard in order to keep this city safe. I will embrace the unicorn officers with open hooves into new positions in the nation of Canterlot, and hope that you will accept. As for the non unicorns among you, the separation of Canterlot from Equestria will be peaceful and you will be allowed to leave the city in peace to wherever the new capital of Equestria is. Perhaps it will be in a city where you can be stationed closer to your families. Whether you are a unicorn or not, if you are a royal guard, you have a good reason to vote for me for mayor, and to vote for the other Unicorn Freedom Movement members for city council."

The crowd, mostly unicorns but with a few ponies from other races mixed in, burst into applause. Blueblood smiled, took a bow, and exited the stage.

Prince Blueblood got up from his chair as he heard a knock on his door. He had been sitting in his recliner after a long day of giving speeches, kissing babies, shaking hooves, and eating at local diners to show that he supported small business. He had dedicated himself to giving at least one speech a day to the royal guard, in addition to his regular rounds of speeches and campaign events to civilians.

He opened the door to see Sunset Shimmer standing there, levitating a newspaper next to her. His eyes widened as he saw her, and he smiled.

"Ah, Sunset Shimmer. Please do come in," said Blueblood, motioning with a hoof for his young friend to enter. She entered and walked over to his couch, taking a seat.

"Nice to see you again, Prince Blueblood. Man, I can't believe they had you under house arrest for a whole week," she said.

"Yes, I can't believe it either. It's nice to see you, though." Blueblood eyed the barren drink coaster on the coffee table next to the couch, and his eyes widened as he blanched. "Oh, where are my manners? Can I get you something to drink? Coffee, tea..."

"Tea, please."

Blueblood walked into his kitchen and prepared two cups of tea. Despite Sunset Shimmer's purely advisory role to the Unicorn Freedom Movement, Blueblood had missed her presence regardless. She was fiery and passionate, qualities that he admired in ponies. He would certainly have to make use of her and Unistorm once he won and could legalize the forbidden magic they used.

He levitated a cup of tea over to Sunset Shimmer.

"Prince Blueblood, I came here to share some figures with you—" she said, opening up the newspaper.

"Ah, the poll numbers?" Blueblood said, levitating his teacup up to his lips and taking a sip, "Yes, as I understand it, our party is gaining quite nicely and we may top 40% soon. My personal popularity is above 70%, and I am sure to win the election for mayor!" He smiled at this last sentence, but Sunset Shimmer had a concerned look on her face.

She said, "But the election is less than two weeks away, and we need over 50% to have a majority of seats in the city council. To make our goals, we don't just need for you to be mayor, we need the council on our side as well. We need that additional ten percent to give us majority status in council seats."

Blueblood responded, "Yes, well we have two weeks left; I believe we can close the gap in that time. Our numbers have been rising ever since I joined the party, and we've been gaining in the polls," Blueblood responded, "I also have been campaigning to members of the royal guard recently, which has yet to be reflected in the polls. And even if we _don't_ win a majority of seats on the council, we could still perhaps sway the other 60% of the ponies in the seats to vote our way, perhaps by forming a coalition government."

Sunset Shimmer groaned, "Yeah, but what if we _can't?_ We won't get independence for Canterlot, and we won't be able to kick the non-unicorns out for another two years until the next council members come up for reelection."

"But we can still certainly persuade Princess Luna and Princess Twilight to give our ideas more consideration," said Blueblood, "We can certainly work on getting that Ivory Tower Tax repealed, and locally pre-empting some of Celestia's magic laws. Those positions are popular even with ponies who otherwise don't support our unicorn supremacy platform. Besides, you are acting as if there's something that can be done to change it besides campaigning."

"What if there is something that we can do?" Sunset Shimmer said, narrowing her eyebrows.

Blueblood chuckled nervously, "Well, we can campaign, if that's what you're talking about."

"No, I am referring to something a bit more... _persuasive_."

Blueblood set his tea back down and said, "I hope you are not referring to what I think you are referring to. We have an agreement, remember? You and Unistorm are not to resort to any violence whatsoever. The Unicorn Freedom Movement is to be a peaceful party, not helped along by Unistorm. I already have gotten enough trouble for the speeches I've given, and they have not even advocated violence. I can hardly imagine what would happen if the princesses tied me and the Unicorn Freedom Movement to a campaign of voter intimidation by Unistorm... if that's what you are suggesting, of course. I don't want to be arrested again."

Sunset Shimmer scowled andsaid, "Those white-coated pegasi brutes in uniform who call themselves 'royal guard' think they can just lock up a great unicorn like you and get away with it?"

"Yes, and they only got away with it for about a week, and then they let me go," said Blueblood, "Those charges would never have held up in court, and Celestia knew it. However, I have learned from this incident; I am now making inroads and connections with some of the royal guard, unicorns in particular. I doubt that the royal guards could arrest me once again without dissent in their own ranks."

"That's still unfair tactics on their part. Who knows how many percentage points that cost us? If you'd been out campaigning for that week, if you'd been using your popularity to bolster the UFM council candidates, we could be ahead in the polls more than we are now. That little arrest incident could have cost us a majority in the council. All I'm asking is that we... _level the playing field_."

"As long as by level the playing field, you mean working extra hard to legitimately campaign and make up for lost time, then yes. We must win with ballots, not bullets. This must be a popular result. I won't rule by fiat."

Sunset Shimmer remained quiet.

"We had an agreement that I would take over as leader of the Unicorn Freedom Movement, you would maintain control of Unistorm, and your Unistorm members wouldn't perpetrate violent acts, and in return, I would ease the magic restrictions and make your group legal as a magical organization, as well as offer you positions in government. I certainly hope that you hold up your end of the bargain. I'm asking you not just as a political partner, but as a friend."

"Yeah, alright," said Sunset Shimmer begrudgingly as she got up and headed for the door.

"Good night, Miss Shimmer. Bear in mind what I said, please," said Prince Blueblood as he opened the door for her.

"Yes, I will," she said, smiling, as the door shut behind her.

Blueblood sighed. Though he admired Sunset Shimmer's passion, he did not want to resort to violence to get the Unicorn Freedom Movement elected into office. Such violence would reflect badly on them, and it might mean that Princess Luna and Twilight would be less willing to agree to a peaceful separation of Canterlot from Equestria. It could even lead to civil war. Thankfully, however, Sunset Shimmer appeared to Blueblood to be receptive to his advice.

But little did Blueblood know that Sunset Shimmer was going behind his back at that very moment.

Sunset Shimmer sat at the head of a longhall table in Unistorm's secret compound. Around the table sat three dozen unicorns wearing grey robes.

She levitated paper pamphlets to each of them. On the top of the pamphlet was written the words "Directive #37."

Sunset Shimmer pounded her hoof against the table and commanded, "This meeting of Unistorm hereby comes to order! Brothers and sisters, you all have your orders in front of you. I will summarize, and you may read the specifics later. You are to go out and encourage the earth ponies and pegasi to stay home from the polls. Use any methods that you want to that won't get you caught. Everything from smashing windows to physically ruffling a few feathers is fair game. Just three rules. Don't commit murder, you may rough up ponies but don't leave them with any permanent injuries, and don't go after any royal guards for obvious reasons; they'll find out and lock us up. Only go after civilians."

"Yes ma'am!" the unicorns gathered around the table answered, saluting Sunset Shimmer.

"Now, remember. You all have dowsing magic. Use it to track down ponies you hear say anything negative about Blueblood or the UFM. Now, commence Directive #37!"

They all saluted and left the room to attend to their orders.

Along a dimly lit back street of Canterlot, an earth pony couple walked along the cobblestone sidewalk, holding hooves.

"My, the weather's certainly nice this time of year," said the mare.

"I agree," said the stallion, taking a deep breath, "I'm a bit nervous about this election, though. We could end up kicked out of our home if Blueblood wins mayor and the Unis win in the city council. I know unicorns are the majority in this city, but we should at least be able to keep and live in the property we paid money for. I don't care if it's the will the majority of our neighbors that we leave. Democracy shouldn't have authority over my private property. Our house shouldn't be up for a vote."

In a dark alleyway a hundred feet off in the distance, a hooded unicorn mare stood, her horn lighting up at the word "Blueblood." She used a hearing enhancement spell to listen in on this particular conversation.

"Honey, I thought we agreed not to talk about politics until election day," the mare said, nudging the stallion with her muzzle.

"Sorry, just thinking aloud," the stallion responded, "You'll get out and vote against him though, right? I mean, for the sake of our future."

"Hmm, as much as I don't like politics, I suppose that if you don't take an interest in it, it'll take an interest in you," the mare said as the couple passed the alleyway, "So yes, I will vote against him, obviously."

"That or you won't vote at all." The couple looked up to see a unicorn mare in a grey, hooded cloak. The hood covered her entire face, with only two slits for the eyes. Her horn made the hood stick up to a point.

"Who are you?" the stallion asked, defensively.

"I'm simply a concerned citizen," said the mare, "And one who would like you to stay home on election day."

"I'm not scared of you," said the stallion.

"Oh? No fear? You should at least know your place as a magicless creature. Fear is a natural instinct for those less evolved forms of life, for prey against predator. Unless earth ponies are so inferior that they were born without such instinct that even the mice and rabbits in the field possess."

"Go away!" the earth mare said.

"Ah, well, we shall see," said the hooded unicorn. At that moment, the earth stallion was enveloped in a green field of magic and dragged into the alley. The earth mare stood there.

"What are you doing? Let him go!" she yelled.

"As you wish," the unicorn mare said, and levitated the stallion ten feet into the air, dropping him. He hit the ground with a thud. He turned around to run, but found his hooves coming into contact with a green forcefield, which now surrounded him.

"Let me go!" he called out, "You can't keep me locked in this bubble forever. Your magic will tire and you'll have to let me go anyway. Either that happens now or later."

"I say later," the unicorn said.

The stallion's marefriend ran out of the alleyway, screaming for help. The stallion stood, looking unfazed and standing his ground. However, had he known more about how force fields work, he would've had cause for concern and would have struggled more.

The unicorn kept up the forcefield, and in a few minutes, the stallion gasped for breath as the air supply inside of his bubble diminished.

"Are you scared of us now?" The unicorn smiled.

The stallion screamed in terror, sweat dripping down his forehead as he faced his death from suffocation. He frantically pounded against the forcefield. Small cracks began to appear in it, but he fell to the ground from a lack of oxygen before he had a chance to break it. The unicorn cackled as she removed the force field. The earth stallion regained consciousness, gasping for breath.

The unicorn said, "Just remember. I could have killed you at any moment. It is by my will alone that you survive. The one who holds the life of another in his hooves is superior. Wouldn't you call yourself superior to a child, or to your pet dog? The same principle applies in our relationship to your race, earth pony. It is by our will alone that you draw breath. Who is the superior pony? The one who chooses. You may stay home come election day, but if you go to the polls and vote, or if you tell anypony about our little encounter this evening, I may choose differently than I have today."

The stallion got up and ran away, screaming. The mare smiled and teleported off in a flash of green light. One less vote against the Unicorn Freedom Movement party.


	17. Peace Purge

Election day took many of the political pundits and pollsters by surprise. Blueblood's election to the office of mayor was much as everypony expected: he was universally popular in Canterlot among unicorns for his being a prince, his writing of popular books, his heroic victory against Discord, and his anti-tax stance. Even unicorns who disagreed with his racist rhetoric could still get behind him and cast votes for him. However, the performance of the Unicorn Freedom Movement in the city council elections was entirely unexpected. They managed to take 52% of the seats, which was a majority and enough to enact their legislative agenda.

Blueblood had been sitting in the Unicorn Freedom Movement's campaign headquarters along with the other members of his party after a final day of campaigning. When they heard the results announced on the radio, they all jumped for joy, screaming and hollering. His campaign team picked up Blueblood in their magic, parading him around the office like a rockstar, chanting out his name.

"BLUEBLOOD! BLUEBLOOD!"

"We never could've done this without you, Blueblood!"

"You're the greatest!"

"Alright, Prince Blueblood!" said Sunset Shimmer as the crowd set him down, "We owe you a big one for your leadership. Let's you and I go and have a drink to celebrate our victory."

Blueblood blushed slightly, and said, "Hmm... well, I don't know if I should be seen alone with just a single mare in a bar—"

"Man, can it with the public image crap, Prince; you've won already," she said, slapping him on the back with a hoof, "You're so popular right now, you could probably kill a pony or kidnap a young filly and still be looked up at as a shining example of unicorndom."

"_Unicorndom?_ Is that even a word?" Blueblood asked.

"It is now."

"Ah, because it sounds like something one might wear over a horn."

Sunset Shimmer chuckled. "Wow, Prince, I didn't know you had a sense of humor."

"I do, sometimes."

They walked out the door and onto the street.

"So, what place did you have in mind for drinks?" Blueblood asked.

"Oh, just a little bar off of Centennial..."

"And we're gonna kick out ALL the earth ponies!" yelled Sunset Shimmer as she drunkenly waved her hoof in the air, "Even the pegasi, unless we let 'em in to fly around and race each other for our amusement. Here's to unicorns only!"

The patrons of The Old Mill tavern raised their glasses, cheering and hollering.

The Old Mill was hardly a fancy locale. The floor was covered with a thin film of old beer that had been spilled over the years. Off in a corner, ponies played pool. Thick clouds of smoke hung in the air, visible under the dim, flickering overhead lights. Blueblood would normally never be seen in such a low brow establishment, but Sunset Shimmer was quite persuasive when they were discussing venues. He also did not care as much now that he had had several glasses of wine to drink. As divey as the bar was, at least they had such libations.

"Yes, that's indeed our platform," he said, hiccuping slightly.

Sunset Shimmer turned to him. She said, "I can't thank you enough, Fritz. You've done so much for our organization. I never would have dreamed that within the span of a few months, you'd turn my small party into the ruling party in Canterlot."

"Ah, well you did a lot, too, Sunset," said Blueblood, "Such as helping me campaign legitimately."

"That I did," she said.

"See, I told you that we didn't have to resort to thug tactics to win, Miss Shimmer."

"Yup," she said, taking another gulp of beer.

They continued drinking for another hour until last call at 2:00 AM.

"Alright, Blueblood, I think it'sh time for me to go to the home," she said, "Care to walk wish me back to my apartment?"

"Oh, I'd love to," said Blueblood.

"Just let me go ushe the little filly's room and-and-and we can go," she said, stumbling back towards the restroom, leaving Blueblood by himself.

Blueblood levitated his wine glass back up to his lips and took another sip, finishing the drink right as Sunset Shimmer returned.

"Okay, letsh go," she said, stumbling out the bar's front door. Blueblood followed.

"Are you sure you're okay? Do you need to lie down or something?" asked Blueblood.

"Naw, I drink all the time," she said.

Blueblood, too, was feeling tipsy, but was holding his liquor a bit better than Sunset Shimmer. He accompanied her down the sidewalk as they both slowly sobered up, until they finally reached the front stoop of Sunset Shimmer's apartment complex about thirty minutes later.

"So, Fritz..." she said, "Want to join me upstairs?"

"Sure," said Blueblood, and they walked up the stairs to her apartment.

_My, she wants me to go up to her apartment? Could she... does she feel attracted to me? Hmm... I mean, she is a bit young, but quite pretty..._

A few years ago, he would have said no, but had learned from a certain mare at a certain gala a few years ago that he needed to be more chivalrous and pick up on romantic cues a bit better.

They walked up the stairs to her apartment, she opened the door, and they walked in.

"Please, sit," she said, and he sat down on her couch as she poured them both drinks.

They chatted and drank for another half hour.

"Y'know," said Sunset Shimmer, "You really are a strong, well-spoken unicorn."

"Why thank you," Blueblood said, "And you're quite a dedicated, energetic unicorn."

"And," said Sunset Shimmer, leaning in towards Blueblood, "You're a handsome, attractive stallion."

"And you," said Blueblood, leaning further in, "Are a passionate, fiery mare."

They each closed the remaining gap as their lips pressed together and they embraced one another. After making out for several minutes, they both headed into Sunset Shimmer's bedroom.

"Wow."

The morning sunlight streamed down onto the bed on which Sunset Shimmer and Blueblood laid.

"Last night was... wow," repeated Sunset Shimmer.

"Indeed," said Blueblood.

"You sure know how to please a mare. I had no IDEA you could do those sorts of things with magic."

"Neither did I," said Blueblood, "Though I don't think I shall put that _particular_ spell in my next book."

Sunset Shimmer giggled and said, "Well, I'm gonna shower. Help yourself to whatever food in the pantry you want."

They both got out of bed. Sunset Shimmer went into the shower, and Blueblood walked into the kitchen. He levitated out some bread from the pantry and placed it in the toaster to make toast. As he was waiting, he sat down at the table.

A single sheet of folded paper on the otherwise clear table caught his eye. He resisted peeking for a few moments, but then his curiosity got the better of him and he it grabbed it in his magic.

"Directive 37?" he mumbled, opening the paper with his magic, "What's this?

Blueblood quickly scanned his eyes over the document. His jaw dropped as he realized what he was looking at.

_Unistorm? Voter intimidation? Street thuggery? Violence? Agitation?_ he thought, reading over the flyer.

His stomach churned. He had been betrayed by Sunset Shimmer. His head ached, the alcohol's aftereffects catching up to him. He ran back to the bedroom.

"Sunset, I... I have to go!" he yelled through the bathroom door, "I have uh, a meeting!"

"Okay, see ya! That was fun; we gotta do it again sometime!" she called out.

Blueblood stumbled away from the stoop, and walked down the street. Small droplets of tears stained the ground as he walked. As he rounded the corner, his stomach churned and churned. He found the nearest trash can, ran over to it, and heaved.

After some great effort, he finally found himself back at his house. Not wanting to climb the stairs to his bedroom, he cast a teleport which misfired and ended in him crashing down onto his bed from about five feet above it. After breaking the frame upon which his mattress sat, he set his head down on his pillow and cried himself to sleep.

"She did WHAT?" Fancy Pants exclaimed, spitting out some of his tea in shock.

"I told you. She went behind my back to conduct violent voter intimidation with Unistorm," Blueblood said, "Please believe me. I had nothing to do with this. I'm here for your help. I'm on the hook for legalizing Unistorm and appointing them to city positions, but if word gets out that they helped rig the elections..."

"Then we're in trouble, yes," said Fancy Pants, "I placed my marketing dollars and trust behind you in belief that there would be no violence perpetrated in your name. You placed your trust in Sunset Shimmer that she would not betray you. She has betrayed us both. She took liberties that she was not authorized to take in a power grab that makes me worry greatly."

"She has broken my heart," said Blueblood, scowling, "I'm crushed. I'm angry and sorrowful."

"Wait... you don't mean to say that you have _feelings_ for her, do you?"

"I slept with her. I thought we had something... something REAL. But she was using me. She betrayed me politically, and she betrayed me personally. I'm heartbroken."

Fancy Pants paused for a moment, then said, "Perhaps you can channel this anger into a constructive fashion of some form? Because after this event, it is clear that Unistorm cannot continue to exist. They have proven themselves to be a liability to the Unicorn Freedom Movement. If this news ever gets out, it could mean a civil war rather than a peaceful separation of Canterlot from Equestria. Even if it didn't get out, if you legalize Unistorm and appoint them to positions of power, they could threaten your own power later. I wouldn't put it past them."

"I certainly don't want that," said Blueblood, "And you're right about them threatening my power later. Street thugs will always be street thugs."

"Well, then you need to fix this. I wish I could help you out here, but I really can't. No public relations campaign on my part can fix the fact that voter fraud and intimidation was committed on a widespread scale to get the Unicorn Freedom Movement elected into office. You're in damage control mode, and if you can come out of it with a shred of dignity intact in the public eye, I'd be shocked. First off, I would recommend that you use whatever influence you have to disband Unistorm. Then, come clean about it to the election authorities, and perhaps that will save you some grace in the public eye. Then perhaps they could hold a new election that wouldn't _entirely_ erase your party's gains."

"What if there's another way?" Blueblood asked.

"What do you mean?"

"Well, right now, all we have are accusations and rumors. Nopony has been arrested yet, have they?"

"No, but if any member of Unistorm is arrested and convicted of voter intimidation, that would spell the end of your party. It would be proof that this actually occurred. From my understanding, there have been several complaints to the Election Committee already, and they are communicating with the local authorities to try and arrest Unistorm members. You need to make this public before it's exposed so you can soften the blow."

"What if none of them were arrested?"

"Then you'd just have accusations that are unprovable, and nopony would ever know. But how could they not get arrested? Who knows how many ponies they threatened? Dozens? Hundreds? We don't know the scale of their operations. Somepony must've seen something that would personally identify one or more of them. You'd have to find a way to prevent any of the thirty-plus of them from being arrested, while ensuring that they couldn't pose a threat to your power later on."

"I'll find a way," Blueblood said, as he walked out the door of Fancy Pants' office.

"You wanted to see me, Fritz?" asked Sunset Shimmer. She walked into the mayor's office, where Blueblood sat at his new desk. Though he wasn't officially mayor for another two weeks, he had already moved all of his furniture into the office.

"Yes. I have convened the new city council and they have agreed that the first law that we will pass will legalize Unistorm. I will do it on my first day in office, November 15th."

"That's fantastic!" Sunset Shimmer said, "But we're still illegal under Equestrian law, which overrides local law."

"I know, which is why the second law will be a vote of secession from Equestria," Blueblood responded, "But in the meantime, I would like to call a meeting of Unistorm in order to discuss what positions I will appoint everypony to in the new government. I want everypony in the organization there. They will all be given positions as soon as I am legally able to."

"That's great! I'll tell everyone to meet at the longhall on November 15th," said Sunset Shimmer, walking out of the office.

"Congratulations, Mayor Blueblood," said the Sergeant who Blueblood had met at Celestia's funeral. He and Blueblood were meeting on the barracks ground in the mess hall.

"Thank you, sir," said Blueblood, "I am to take office on November 15th, and then there will be many changes around here. But until that time, there are certain... elements... which remain illegal under current law."

"What do you mean?"

Blueblood glanced around the mess hall to make sure nopony was in earshot. He said, "I have recently become aware of a violent militia operating within the walls of our city. They seek to maim and even kill earth ponies and pegasi. While I want the inferior races out of our city as much as anypony, I want them to leave in caravans, not body bags."

The Sergeant nodded in agreement."I see. Who is this group?"

"They're called Unistorm."

"Unistorm? Aren't they those guys who wear grey wizard robes and hoods?"

"Yes."

"Ah! They've been eluding the royal guard for years. All of them know powerful, illegal magic like invisibility and dark magic, as well as spells like teleportation, so they're very hard to track down. They can evade capture easily. We arrested one at a rally a few months ago, but that's just because he was drunk and assaulted an earth pony right in front of a guard. How stupid, but I doubt any of them will make that mistake again."

"True."

"We also received quite a few reports that they shook down voters and told them that they'd better not go to the polls on election day. However, it's just unconfirmed allegations at this point. I certainly hope you or anyone in your party wasn't involved in orchestrating it."

"If I was, why would I come to you with information on them?" Blueblood asked.

"Fair point. So what is this information?"

"I happen to know where all of them will be since they invited me to an event of theirs, which I will not be attending. It won't be until November 15th, but they will all be in a single room at their compound's longhall. This compound is their base of operations, and they will not abandon it as or try to escape as it contains all of their money, magical scrolls, and worldly possessions. You can surround the compound and take them all out, whether in hoofcuffs or with bullets.

"If you will position your stallions, I can make it quite easy for you to capture them. However, as mayor, I have to tell you that they will be armed and dangerous, both with magic as well as firearms. I would recommend that you and your ponies be armed with assault rifles and that you shoot to kill. Until you can raid their compound, you need to regard everypony in that compound as a terrorist."

"I will do it."

"Good. Now, let me tell you exactly where and when this little event will be taking place."

"Here, here! This meeting of Unistorm has come to order!" said Sunset Shimmer, slamming her hoof down on the ground. Her other grey robed followers saluted her, bowing their heads.

"Now, fellow brothers and sisters of Unistorm. Prince Blueblood, as of today, is the mayor, and has signed legislation into law legalizing the spells that we use!"

The thirty unicorns cheered.

"Yes, now we are here today to both celebrate this event and for Prince Blueblood to nominate positions of power in his new government from our very own ranks. Now, to drink our brew!" she said, levitating a large keg onto the table. Each of the thirty ponies levitated beer mugs over to the table, filling them up. She floated a glass over to Blueblood, but he shook his head.

"You know I don't drink beer, Miss Shimmer; it upsets my stomach," said Blueblood, pulling out a bottle of wine.

"Very well," said Sunset Shimmer, "A toast to Prince Blueblood and to Unistorm and the legalization of our brotherhood!"

"Here, here!" the Unistorm members chanted, raising their glasses and then drinking their beer.

Blueblood opened his wine bottle and chugged the entire thing, for it was the only way he could both stand to be around such traitors to his party and prepare himself for what he had to do.

"So, Prince Blueblood, which positions shall you nominate us for in your new government?"

"Well, first off, we shall start with Sunset Shimmer. She shall be my right hand mare, my vice mayor. When we become a nation, she shall be vice president. I trust her completely, and know that she would NEVER betray me!" Blueblood said, his voice slightly wavering at the word "betray."

"Here, here!" Unistorm chanted.

"Now, as for the rest of you..." Blueblood said, but was interrupted as if on cue.

"ATTENTION UNISTORM MEMBERS. THIS IS THE ROYAL GUARD. YOU ARE UNDER ARREST FOR TERRORISM AND VIOLENCE. PLEASE COME OUT WITH YOUR HOOVES IN THE AIR."

"Oh no, it's the royal guard!" one of the Unistorm members said.

"Battle stations, everypony! We can't let them get into the compound! There's sensitive information and documents in here. Get on the windows and fire your spells! DO NOT RETREAT until I tell you!" Sunset Shimmer ordered. The members obliged and ran up the wooden staircase to the top level, their horns blazing.

Prince Blueblood ran up to the top floor with them, staying out of view of the guards. He watched as a half dozen unistorm members fired magical beams out the window at the Royal Guards. He heard yelling and screaming as several of the guards fell. The Unistorm members surrounded themselves with magical force fields, but the guards fired bullets from their assault rifles, the force of which caused cracks to appear in the shields until they shattered.

"AAH!" One of the Unistorm members fell, his grey robes bloodied red.

"OOF!" Another fell to the ground, his horn shattered by a bullet, unable to use magic. One of his partners levitated an assault rifle over to him, which he fired a few times at the guards before being hit himself.

The exchange of magical energy and gunfire continued for another five minutes until ten or more Unistorm members were dead. It seemed as if their magic was growing weaker as time progressed.

Prince Blueblood could hear Sunset Shimmer yell, "Retreat! Retreat! Into the cellar, we'll regroup there!"

The unicorns at the windows teleported down the stairs towards the cellar, and Blueblood followed. They entered a trapdoor next to the longhall table and into the cellar.

"Alright, everypony, here's the plan. First we need... we—"

"What is it, Sunset Shimmer?" a Unistorm member asked.

"I think we should..." she started, but then fell to the floor with a thud.

"Sunset Shimmer!" one of the unicorns ran over to her to check on her, but fell to the ground himself.

One by one, the unicorns fell to the floor until there were none of them left.

_Well, spiking the beer has both weakened their magic in the fight as well as knocked them out_, he thought. _Now to destroy the evidence._

Blueblood's horn glowed a bright orange as flames emanated from it, engulfing the grey robes of the twenty or so remaining Unistorm members one by one.

He walked up to Sunset Shimmer, who was laying on the ground, and set fire to her last. A single tear dripped from his eye as her fiery red mane was engulfed in actual flames.

"WE HAVE YOU SURROUNDED! COME OUT NOW OR WE WILL STORM THE COMPOUND!"

_And all you'll find is a smouldering heap,_ Blueblood thought, walking up to the main floor and setting fire to the wooden floor, table, and support beams. Blueblood charged up his horn and teleported off about an eighth of a mile away, outside the compound. He turned his eyes towards the sky and saw a plume of smoke. He ran towards it, where he saw the Sergeant and dozens of his men behind metal barricades.

"MAYOR!" the Sergeant called out, "It's not safe for you here. We're in the middle of a siege!"

"What happened?" Blueblood asked, "I saw smoke in the sky."

"These crazy Unistorm members were firing spells at us left and right. We lost about five of our ponies. Then, they stopped shooting, and the whole place went up in flames! We're still waiting for any of them to teleport out, but either they teleported way behind our lines or they were caught up in the blaze before they could.

"Who started the fire?"

"I don't know, but it wasn't us."

"Well, that's unfortunate," said Prince Blueblood, "But maybe between losing five of their members and however many perished in the fire, as well as losing their compound to the blaze, Unistorm is done as a group."

"Let's hope," said the Sergeant.

Blueblood walked home, his head spinning. He did it. He had won the mayor's office and gotten rid of the threat to his power that Unistorm posed. No one would ever be able to prove that they intimidated voters. They would never commit violence or thuggery again. They'd never threaten his rule again. A smile crossed his face, his peace purge complete.

But then his head jolted up. He recalled a young stallion setting fire to an entire classroom many years ago, committing an act of mass murder of his fellow unicorns at Celestia's School For Gifted Unicorns. Blueblood recalled the horror of that event, the senselessness of ending so many lives at once. Magical, unicorn lives that were not the stallion's to take.

_Am I really so different from that deranged stallion? Am I really being noble where the student had been a psychopath? Or am I the same..._

He shook his head. "No," he said to himself, "This is different."


	18. Independence

A large crowd gathered outside of the Canterlot City Hall as Prince Blueblood stood in front of a podium.

"Today, I give my first speech to you not as a campaigner, but as a mayor of the city of Canterlot, and soon, the leader of Canterlot as its own independent nation."

The crowd cheered.

"The first step in accomplishing this is to sign a declaration of independence for Canterlot. This will change our city to a nation, our city guard into a military, and me into a king."

"King Blueblood! King Blueblood!" the crowd chanted.

Prince Blueblood said, "On this podium in front of me is the Unicorn Separation Declaration, signed by a majority of the city council members, which establishes the new kingdom of Unicornia, which is to have the same borders of Canterlot. Here is the official text, which I will read to you before I sign it:

"_Over the course of the two millennia since the three ancient tribes of pony races joined to form the nation of Equestria, friendship and equality between the races have been trumpeted as virtues to be applauded and upheld. For years, we as a race believed the lie and attempted to uphold the terms of this union. We held it as sacred and inviolate, as we have always valued peace._

"_Some individuals from the nation of Equestria may wonder why we are dissolving the long-standing union between the three races, and the union between Canterlot and Equestria. We do it because the usurpers known as the Princesses have violated the terms of the sacred agreement between unicorns and the other races, the agreement which is supposed to hold us all as equal._

"_The Princesses have sought to restrain the natural magical abilities of our race through the use of magic restrictions, while allowing the other races total freedom over the use of their bodies and natural powers._

"_They have denied unicorns our own, exclusive cities while allowing exclusive cities for the other two races._

"_They have denied the use of public funds for magical education of the general population of unicorns, while allowing public funds to be used for flight schools and farming schools for pegasi and earth ponies, respectively._

"_They have, in the last year, taxed our people and the unicorn majority city of Canterlot at a crippling rate, while not applying similar taxes to other cities._

"_They have shown personal disrespect and loathing for the unicorns, as proven on an audio recording of Princess Celestia, who has plotted to minimize the number of unicorns by committing genocide against our race._

"_For these reasons, we as a race hereby declare our independence under the principles of peaceful self-governance, and establish the new nation of Unicornia for ourselves and our descendants."_

With that, Blueblood took a quill in his magic and signed the declaration, to the rabid applause of the audience members.

Inside the war room of the Canterlot barracks, Princess Luna and Twilight stood, listening to a military briefing.

"So, the raid on Unistorm concluded yesterday after we had determined that no more members were hiding in the compound. Some of them may have teleported away, but judging from the number of bodies we found compared to the suspected size of Unistorm, I estimate that at least 90% of their members perished is the battle with the guard or the subsequent conflagration. As for our own casualties, we lost six ponies, and another twenty were injured, five severely."

Princess Luna was not looking at the white-coated pegasus general while he was speaking. Instead, she looked out from one of the windows. Twilight Sparkle was also present, intently listening to the general.

Princess Luna spoke, "Was there anything that could have been done to prevent such violence?"

The general responded, "I do not believe so. Unistorm was a violent group. They had been accused of election fraud and violence. We needed to arrest them, and once we received a credible piece of intelligence from the mayor as to their whereabouts all in one place, it was necessary to act. We offered them all a chance to surrender, but they insisted upon firing volleys of spells and bullets at us. Then, there was the fire, which was of unknown origin. What we do know is that it started inside the compound, but we don't know if it was deliberately set or just an accident. We called firefighters in, but by the time they contained the blaze and it was safe for them to enter and look for survivors, they found none."

Twilight Sparkle scratched her chin with her hoof, puzzled. She said, "I just don't understand why none of them teleported out before they were burnt to death. Or, why none of them surrendered rather than face death by fire."

"We have several theories on that. One is that it would not have been possible to teleport out, given that the compound was entirely enclosed. Another is that, after they found themselves outgunned, they purposefully set the fire and all committed deliberate suicide so that none of them would be taken alive. A third theory is that the fire spread so quickly that it caught them by surprise before they could escape."

"Eh, guess that has to be true," said Twilight.

"I understand that those are not the most satisfying explanations, but they are the clearest ones given the evidence," the general said.

"So you said that Blueblood gave you information on them?" Luna asked.

"Correct. He gave a tip to one of our sergeants after he said that he had been invited to one of their meetings."

"Hmm. I suppose that would rule out that he was involved somehow," said Luna, "Though him reporting a pro-unicorn group is a bit suspicious considering that he is pro-unicorn himself."

"Unless they had simply outlived their usefulness to him," said Twilight, "I mean, how convenient is it to Blueblood that right after widespread allegations of voter fraud in favor of the Unicorn Freedom Movement, the only ponies who could be identified and charged for it were all shot or burnt alive along with their compound, thus eliminating any suspects or incriminating documents that could prove it?"

"Very convenient indeed," said the general, "But reporting terrorists is not a crime. He did exactly what he should have, given what he knew: to tell us."

"True," Twilight conceded. Luna nodded in agreement.

Suddenly, the door to the room burst open. The three ponies looked over at the door as the grey-coated unicorn Sergeant entered, along with the new king, Blueblood himself.

Blueblood said, "Princesses Luna and Twilight. I am here to carry out the declaration recently passed by the city council. This barracks must be evicted immediately, and the Equestrian occupation of Unicornian territory must end."

Princess Luna replied, "I do not recognize this order, Prince Blueblood. Canterlot has been and always will be part of Equestria."

"It's KING Blueblood now," Blueblood spoke, "And who are you to deny the will of the ponies? You are to respect the wishes of their duly-elected leaders and evict your forces from this barracks. I will not ask again."

"This IS Equestria, and we shall not abandon it!" Luna declared, stomping her hoof on the ground.

"Do you realize that this is treason, Sergeant? You could be court-martialed and hung for your lack of loyalty," said the white pegasus general, glaring at the grey unicorn Sergeant.

"I _am_ being loyal, but to the new nation of Unicornia as a unicorn. You non-unicorns are once again demonstrating your contempt and disregard for the will of our race," said the Sergeant, "We hope we shall not have to use force to remove you, but if we do, I have plenty of unicorns in my platoon who will carry out the orders of King Blueblood. And there are other sergeants who agree as well. We could muster a force of thousands."

"General," said Luna, "Escort these two traitors out, please."

The pegasus approached Pricce Blueblood and the Sergeant, but the Sergeant held his hoof out.

"We can find our own way out, thanks," the Sergeant said. He and Blueblood turned to leave and walk out the door.

"Prince Blueblood!"

He turned around to see Twilight Sparkle running after him.

"What is it, Miss Sparkle?"

"You need to stop. Why are you doing this?" she pleaded.

He responded, "You know very well. Princess Celestia told you that she preferred a kingdom without unicorns, and that her job would be a lot easier if the unicorns were gone from Equestria. I am simply granting her wish," he said, turning around and heading for the door again.

"But that's not what she meant! This isn't what she would have wanted; she would have wanted peace and unity!" Twilight yelled out. But Blueblood simply slammed the door to the room shut behind him.

"General," said Luna to the pegasus general, who stood at attention, "Rally whatever forces are still loyal to you. Prepare a defense plan. We are not leaving this barracks. I don't care what the city council says... Canterlot is still Equestria, and still our capital."

"Yes, Princess."

**JANUARY 2015**

Over the three months since November when Blueblood won and assumed office, Canterlot had begun taking steps to truly establish itself as the new nation of Unicornia. The Equestrian flag had been lowered from all of the city's flagpoles and replaced with the new flag of Unicornia. Giant flag burning parties had been held in the street where the flames of bonfires were fed by thousands of flags.

Unicorn ambassadors had set out on ships and dirigibles to the far-flung corners of the earth to establish relations with other nations. The zebra and griffon empires had recognized Unicornia as a nation, with the Crystal Empire delaying recognition until "the day stability is fully restored."

Outside the Canterlot Mint, long lines of ponies had snaked around the block every day for months. They carried giant burlap sacks of bits with them. As they entered the mint one by one, they placed their sacks on a scale to have them weighed. After weighing, the bags were taken away to be melted back down into molten metal, where each pony's old Equestrian bits with Celestia's face on them were melted down, re-stamped, and replaced with an equal weight and number of unicornian bits with Blueblood's face on them.

On the grounds of the burnt old royal palace, carpenters and stonemasons were busy erecting a new royal palace for Blueblood. A steel skeleton was quickly taking shape on the old foundation. When it was completed, the new palace would rise twenty stories into the air and wauld be the tallest building in Canterlot.

The unicorn members of the Royal Guard who decided to pledge allegiance to Blueblood received new ranks, uniforms, and insignias. Since the Canterlot barracks was still under control of Equestria, the new Unicornian Guardsponies slept in local hotels which Blueblood had decreed be opened to them for that purpose. They numbered about 8,000, compared to the 50,000 Equestrian loyalists still stationed in the barracks.

In the public schools of the city, teachers began phasing out the old "Equestrian History" textbooks as new Unicornian history textbooks were printed. In the new semester starting in January 2015, magic courses would be added to the curriculum for the first time ever in Canterlot public schools.

The ivory tower tax had been repealed, much to the joy of Canterlot residents. The economy slowly began to pick back up as businesses re-opened. Though the city council, now known as the national parliament, had yet to pass any laws forcing the pegasi and earth ponies to leave Canterlot, a few shops and homes of non-unicorns had moving vans outside of them already.

Even minor things such as postage stamps, radio licensing, and units of weights and measures were changed over to Unicornian standards. Stamps were printed with Blueblood's face on them. The call signs of radio stations changed. The old Equestrian measurement units of hooves, pounds, and gallons which had been decreed by Celestia thousands of years ago were gradually being replaced with meters, kilograms, and liters, based off of constants in nature.

With all of these changes going on, King Blueblood was quite pleased as he stood inside a dirigible floating over the city, gazing down at his burgeoning nation below.

"Well, I must hand it to you, King. You have done a remarkable job of rallying the people around the creation of a new nation," said Fancy Pants, who stood at the wheel of his airship, piloting it.

"Well, I couldn't have done it without you, Minister," said Blueblood, "All those public awareness campaigns about the money, flags, military, and measurement really have helped us along. Thank you."

Blueblood had appointed Fancy Pants as the Minister of the Department of Information, a new department of government. He had been helping to smooth the transition from Equestria to Unicornia through posters, newspaper ads, and radio ads.

"Not a problem. And I am glad that the situation with Unistorm sorted itself out. If not, our separation from Equestria might not have been as peaceful as it has been."

"Yes…" said Blueblood, his heart sinking at the mention of Sunset Shimmer's former terrorist group.

"However," he added, looking down at the large, grey, concrete building which was the city's barracks, "I don't think the separation is fully complete yet."

"What do you mean, the Equestrians still stationed in the barracks?"

"The occupying forces, yes," Blueblood corrected, "They have to leave soon, either peacefully or by force. We have given them three months to comply; that's more than enough time. If they will not leave, we will evict them."

"Is that really necessary? They have yet to interfere with any of our new laws," Fancy Pants asked.

"Well, that is because we have yet to implement the most controversial of our new laws: kicking out the non-unicorns. Once we try and do that, I have a feeling that Luna and Twilight would step in and try and prevent this."

"I see," said Fancy Pants, "Well, do what you must. I would obviously advocate a peaceful, non-interference approach. But you are king, not I. Of course, I shall advocate for you in the court of public opinion, regardless."

"Thank you, Minister."

In the south part of Canterlot stood the Hoofmoor, a five star hotel and one of the hotels where Blueblood had decreed that the military would stay until the barracks was retaken. Before, the Hoofmoor had been for the highest and most esteemed guests in Canterlot, whether they be CEOs, executive businessponies, jet setters, or visiting dignitaries. Now, four fifths of its two-thousand rooms were occupied by the military, all of them either high ranking officers or E-7 and higher enlisted ponies.

As King Blueblood walked, he admired the flowers and hedges that were trimmed to perfection. The driveway was spotless, not an oil stain or chewing gum spot to be seen. The bellhop bowed as Blueblood walked into the grand lobby. Crystal chandeliers hung from the ceiling, and ponies sat in fine leather furniture as they waited. The marble floor was so smooth that he could see his reflection in it.

Blueblood had spared no expense for the military. Or, rather, he had decreed that the _Hoofmoor_ spare no expense for them. He was killing two birds with one stone by both housing the military and securing their loyalty to him through the posh atmosphere. Celestia had never put them up in fancy hotels, after all.

"Your majesty? Is there anything I can do for you?" The owner of the hotel, a beige earth pony, said as he walked up to Blueblood.

"Yes, you can get me the Sergeant Major," said Blueblood. The owner motioned for the bellcolt, who ascended the marble staircase towards the sergeant's quarters.

"Are you guys going to be leaving soon? I only have 400 rooms left for paying customers, and my hotel is losing quite a bit of money by housing these military stallions for free."

Blueblood glared at him.

"Which, of course, is something I am willing to do to support the troops," the owner added, blushing.

"What does it matter to you? We are going to be kicking your kind out soon, anyway," said Blueblood to the earth pony, "Consider this recompensation for the ivory tower tax."

The Hoofmoor owner would have added that he had been a resident of Canterlot his whole life and that he, too, had to pay the geography-based ivory tower tax when it was in force, but didn't figure that Blueblood would listen.

The grey unicorn Sergeant descended the stairs. Blueblood had promoted him from Staff Sergeant to Sergeant Major of the Department of Protection, the name for Unicornian army.

"So, you have your platoon battle ready, Sergeant Major?" Blueblood asked.

"That I do," the Sergeant Major replied.

"Excellent. Last time, back in November when it was just you and me telling the princesses to leave the barracks, our words did not have much weight behind them. But hopefully now that you can demonstrate our superior armed forces, they will leave without us needing to fire a single spell."

"Hopefully."

"Now let's retake that barracks, sergeant!"

"Yes, sir!" the Sergeant saluted and said, "I just hope my stallions haven't been spoiled by this place. They may be a bit hesitant to give up their room service and continental breakfast to return to their barracks.

Blueblood chuckled as the two headed off to the other hotels to mobilize the troops.

Blueblood and the Sergeant major walked down the street towards the Canterlot barracks. Behind them, a battalion of 1,000 unicorn soldiers marched with assault rifles on their backs. As they marched down the street, crowds of Canterlot civilians cheered them on.

Finally, they reached the Canterlot Barracks. Two earth pony guards stood firm in front of the gates, clutching their assault rifles in their hooves.

Prince Blueblood's horn lit up as he used a voice amplification spell.

"Attention, trespassers! The time has come for you to evict Canterlot. You have give minutes to leave peacefully."

Princesses Luna and Twilight, hearing the noise, ran over and looked out of the window to see the batallion.

"What are we going to do?" Twilight asked Luna.

Luna, instead, disappeared in a flash of light and reappeared outside the barracks, hovering in the air.

Using the royal Canterlot voice, Luna shouted, "WE DO NOT RECOGNIZE YOUR AUTHORITY. AS YOUR PRINCESS, WE ORDER YOU TO TURN BACK."

She disappeared again and reappeared back inside the barracks, next to Twilight.

"See, Twilight? Sometimes, we must use persuasion to get our way."

Meanwhile, outside, Prince Blueblood turned towards the Sergeant Major.

"Waiting on your orders, sir."

Prince Blueblood turned back towards the barracks, then grinned.

"Prepare the artillery. Fire at will."


	19. Mollification

"King Blueblood," said the Sergeant Major, "we shall begin firing. But I'd advise you leave the area before we do."

"Oh? But I would love to be present when the princesses of Equestria see their folly," he sneered, grinning.

"Well, it will be highly dangerous. For one, this barracks was built in the last decade to withstand dragons, griffons, zebras, and any other potential invading force… including unicorns. You know how suspicious Celestia was. We can't just teleport in; this place is airtight. The walls are reinforced concrete half a meter thick. We gotta use dozens of mortars. That could take hours, and we might come under attack."

"Very well. Come get me when we defeat them," Blueblood ordered. He teleported back to his palace. Once he was gone, the sergeant major gave the order to fire.

A loud cacophony of explosions rang through the air as round after round of mortars burst on the concrete walls of the barracks.

"Fan out and surround it! Cover all of the entrances and exits. If you see an opening, exploit it." the Sergeant Major commanded.

The battalion split up into several companies which headed around to the sides of the barracks. Meanwhile, the barrage at the front gates continued.

About thirty minutes into the siege, the sky darkened. The Sergeant Major and the stallions at his command glanced up above them as thousands of pegasi soldiers soared through the air, hovering over the Unicornian battalion, strafing them with machine gun fire.

"Wizards. Put up a force field!" the sergeant commanded. The horns of a dozen unicorns lit up as the battalion was surrounded by a force field.

"Return fire!"

The troops fired spells from their horns, spells which penetrated the one-way force-field, hitting several of the pegasi. Their bodies landed on the force field with a thunk, and then slid to the ground.

The hundreds of pegasi seared overhead, turning back around for another pass. They let loose bombs this time, which shattered the force field with a bang.

Once again, the battalion was left wide open to enemy fire. Soldiers screamed and yelled as they were hit left and right.

"Do not retreat. Return fire, stand your ground, and await my orders!" the Sergeant Major commanded.

The Sergeant teleported away to near the front of the line where the artillery ponies stood. A dusty pile of rubble stood fifty feet in front of them where they had been demolishing the wall.

"Corporal, give me a status report!" the Sergeant Major commanded.

"We've penetrated most of the way through the concrete, sir! Just one or two more shells and we'll have a hole big enough to teleport through and begin our incursion!"

"We need to speed it up. Get all available units on it; we're getting pounded from the air by pegasi sorties! If we don't hurry, we won't have any stal'ns left to MAKE the incursion!"

"Sir, yes sir!" the corporal said. "You heard him, ponies! I want every tube loaded and fired in the next ten seconds! While you're doing that, fire energy blasts from your horns at it!"

There was a mass scramble as ponies levitated rockets off of the carts and loaded them into tubes as quickly as they could. They lit the fuses and charged up their horns, letting loose energy beams at the wall along with mortars. While the beams did not do anywhere near as much damage as the mortar rounds, the troops were in a mad frenzy to get inside and escape the pegasi onslaught.

"AAH!" Three of the artillery ponies fell onto the ground, having been hit by pegasi strafing. Thinking quickly, the corporal extended his magic to catch the three tubes before they hit the ground. His horn glowed intensely at the effort. At that moment, the mortars fired from the tube.

The wall exploded, and through the dust and smoke, the wall exploded.

"Forward! Through the wall!" the Sergeant commanded. Zaps and white sparkling flashes of white erupted all across the battlefield as the troops disappeared from out in the open into the safety of the barracks. Normally, the Sergeant would stay behind the main lines and command from the relative safety of held territory, but in this cases, the barracks was the safer territory, so he moved right along with their advance.

The Sergeant found himself in a large atrium inside the base. The ceilings were too low to allow pegasi to fly high enough to strafe, leaving the battalion safe from strafing. There were several hallways extending out from the lobby in various directions.

"They've lost air superiority! Now, time to use magic superiority! Fan out in all directions! Secure each hallway as you go. Wizards, cast force fields out in front of us as we advance!"

Hundreds of troops poured through the halls as a purple barrier stood between the advancing forces and whatever pegasi or earth ponies stood in the hall. They were promptly mowed down by unicorn machine gun fire and magical beams before they could shatter the force fields.

The company the sergeant traveled with reached the mess hall, which they entered as they burst through the doors.

Evidently, they had caught the troops in the mess hall off guard. Only a few of them were armed, most of whom were guards; the rest had been eating lunch. The Unicornian troops engaged in a brief firefight with the armed guards, and took the rest as prisoners.

The Sergeant headed back out into the hallway, smiling at this fortunate lucky break. He went to check on the status of the rest of the base.

"Sir!" one of the corporals yelled at him, running up to him.

"Yes, corporal?"

"We have captured over 50% of the base. There is some trouble in the armory. Some ponies are holed up in there behind the steel blast doors. What should we do?"

"They can't stay in there forever. Just station guards outside the door until they surrender."

"Aye, sir."

The Sergeant stood at the mess hall until the corporal reported back to him once more, a few hours later.

"Sir! We've captured the princesses! We have also captured all but a few rooms of the barracks. Here is a progress report."

The corporal floated over a sheet of paper to the sergeant. He grinned as he read it. Only 200 Unicornian troops lost, compared to 1,000 Equestrian troops. 20,000 Equestrian troops in the barracks were taken as prisoners of war, along with the two princesses themselves. The rest of the base's contingent had fled.

"Good. I'm gonna go talk to the princesses."

The Sergeant walked into the war room where Princesses Twilight and Luna stood. "Hello, Luna and Twilight."

That's princess-"

The Sergeant held up his hoof. "We don't recognize your rule anymore, and you're in no position to bargain. We've captured the entire base and took thousands of your troops as POWs. Now, we'll negotiate the terms of your unconditional surrender."

"I don't think so," said Twilight.

"But you would be so foolish not to, former student of mine."

The three ponies looked behind them and saw that King Blueblood had entered the room.

He spoke, "Excellent work securing the barracks and clearing these Equestrian invaders, Sergeant. Now, Twilight and Luna, I am here to negotiate the terms of your surrender and to sign a peace treaty that is to our mutual advantage."

"We don't negotiate with terrorists," Princess Luna scoffed.

King Blueblood let out a hearty laugh. "Oh, how cute! You really do still think this is a game, don't you? You somehow think you can go on and play dress up with your princess tiaras and ensembles? You think you can still go to your Grand Galloping Galas and Summer Sun Celebrations and whatever other alliteratively-named royal bread and circuses that you want to put on to try and deceive the commoners into thinking you give a damn about them? You think you can still raise the sun and moon like you own the whole planet itself? You think that you can do that and that everypony will still love you after all that you've done to try and marginalize and destroy the unicorn race, and that we here in Unicornia are just a small, disorganized, ragtag group of… what did you say? _Terrorists_?"

"We are still the legitimate rulers of Canterlot, and all of Equestria," Twilight insisted, "And you are a terrorist and a traitor."

Blueblood sneered, "Oh, you're the _legitimate rulers?_ That's funny. I don't recall either of you winning your crown by popular vote like I did. So you clearly don't derive your legitimacy from the consent of the governed. I don't recall you having won this little battle for control over the Canterlot barracks. So you clearly don't derive your legitimacy from strength. Other nations have recognized Unicornia as an independent nation with Canterlot as its capital, so you clearly don't derive your legitimacy from international standing. And since you apparently don't know what the word 'legitimate' itself even means, you clearly can't derive legitimacy from intelligence, either! So what, pray tell, DO you derive your legitimacy from?"

"From our respect of freedom of association and property rights. Tyranny of the majority is not freedom. Your democracy is nothing more than the unicorn majority voting to rob the earth pony and pegasi minority. If they had raided their homes with guns and stolen their valuables, it would be the same. If stealing land and property from the non-unicorns of Canterlot and kicking them out to fuel some misguided victim complex that you have can somehow be construed as 'legitimacy,' then so be it," Luna responded.

"You are assuming that non-unicorn rights deserve the same consideration as unicorn rights. That is untrue. Unicorns are the more evolved, genetically superior pony race. Just as ponies in general, earth and pegasi included, are superior to talking farm animals. When you let the cows and sheep in Ponyville and elsewhere go free from their pens, you can get back to me about the tyranny of the majority and how terrible you claim it is."

Twilight responded, "That's a false equivalency. Ponies are all ponies. The only difference is their skillset. You can have wings or a horn or neither, but you are still a pony. Some are just more skilled at different things than others, just as there are differences in skill sets among unicorns themselves. I can do far more magic than your average unicorn, and there are some who barely know any magic at all. Am I a more superior individual to them? Do I get to take their property? Actually, since I am an alicorn and can fly as well as use magic and farm, do I get to boss _you_ around? If we are going for a hierarchy based off of superiority, then Luna and I claim legitimacy to rule over Equestria, Canterlot included, based off of our being alicorns and having superior skills to unicorns."

"You can not be allowed to rule this city ever again," Blueblood answered, "Because you violated the hierarchy on a regular basis. Under Celestia, unicorns were treated as LESS than the other two pony races. Even if you don't believe that we are superior and that we are 'equal' to earth ponies, Equestria as a nation failed even that standard. Celestia lowered the standard to a falsehood and even then refused to meet it. You ran a twisted, perverted government against the laws of nature. Even though you are alicorns, you are unfit to rule based off of delusions, as Luna said.

"Now, I would allow you a rebuttal, but I have a sneaking suspicion that this conversation could continue for days and we would still disagree. I am not here to debate with you, as I have the upper hoof regardless. We have 20,000 prisoners of war in this barracks, including the princesses of Equestria themselves. Our demands are simple."

"I'm listening," Princess Luna said.

"Your troops will be allowed to peacefully leave the bunker, and we will cease all hostilities towards Equestria if and only if Equestria recognizes Unicornian sovereignty and allows unicorns from Equestria to freely migrate to Unicornia. You will also give us the Unicorn Range as well as all of the Flatlands plains from the Unicorn Range north to the Crystal Empire, East to Neighagra falls, and West to the Galloping Gorge. We need much more farmland than just the foothills of Canterlot if we want enough food to be independent of the earth ponies, and this land would be perfect. Also, most of the small towns in that area have 40% or more unicorns already, so we wouldn't have to go to the trouble of kicking out too many non-unicorns. In exchange, Unicornia will cease all hostilities against Equestria and agree to not attack Equestria unprovoked."

"Unacceptable. You're asking us to give up nearly a fifth of Equestria's landmass," said Luna.

"Well, I suppose that if you don't agree, we will just keep you in this bunker forever. We'll feed you and all, but I don't think you will be able to raise the sun and moon too well from in here. And though the unicorns would love to have that job back, none of us quite have the experience to move the heavenly bodies just yet."

"What are you saying?"

"I'm saying that it's night time right now, and it will remain night time until you agree to the terms of surrender and I let you go to wherever you decide the new capital of Equestria will be. So, the night will last forever. Sort of like that little stunt you tried to pull a while back, Luna. Now, I ask, can you afford to let every living thing in Equestria die?"

"You'd die, too," Twilight observed.

"Perhaps," Blueblood responded, "But it's your choice, not mine. And I just know that you wouldn't condemn everyone to death. Sign the treaty. What's more important: a fifth of your landmass and some bruised ego with having a new country, or the lives of everypony in Equestria as well as Unicornia?"

Twilight silently took the quill in her magic and signed the treaty. Luna hesitated for a moment, then followed.

"I knew that you'd see it my way. Now, you're free to go."

"Citizens of Manehattan," spoke Twilight Sparkle from behind the podium in front of the town hall, "And all other citizens from other cities who may be watching. You no doubt have heard of the recent battle of Equestrian forces with the breakaway Unicornian state. Today, I have come to announce that we have secured a peace deal with the Unicornians. This peace deal will be based on mutual respect for our sovereign borders by each side."

"For one, we have given the northern Flatlands over to Prince Blueblood and his forces. He has demanded them as part of any peace deal, and I believe, as does Luna, that this is in the best interests of peace for our continent. These policies are meant to mollify any warlike tendencies on behalf of Blueblood or Unicornia.

"As part of this mollification policy, we have decided to formally recognize Unicornia as an independent nation. We shall normalize diplomatic, military, and trade relations with Unicornia immediately. Again, this is in the best interests of allowing peace to prevail across this continent.

"Now, some of you may ask where the capital of Equestria will be located now that Unicornia is its own nation. You may also wonder why I have decided to give such an important speech about the future of our two nations in Manehattan. Those two questions have the same answer; we will be relocating the capital of Equestria to Manehattan."

The ponies in the crowd gave a muted response. About half of them clapped, while the other half remained quiet. Though the population at large was not military strategists, it was quite obvious that through this peace deal, Equestria was admitting defeat against the rebels, now to be granted recognition as their own nation.

The peace, as it was predicted, held. It held because of how beneficial it had proven to Blueblood and Unicornia, and because the nation of Equestria, reeling from its losses both in the battle for the Canterlot barracks as well as against the Wendigoes and the crippling droughts a few months earlier, could not afford to launch a counterattack to reclaim Canterlot. Even if they could, it was also obvious that Twilight Sparkle did not want any further confrontation.

The peace was so stable that for the next year, many unicorn ponies from Equestria freely migrated to Canterlot and Unicornia, and many earth ponies and pegasi moved out of Unicornia. Blueblood began taking steps to consolidate his power and fully enact his racial agenda, including kicking out all non-unicorns by force.


End file.
